Choices
by wheatear
Summary: When Jessica meets Kilgrave, his powers don't work on her. She could have walked away. If only she'd walked away…
1. with great power comes 0 responsibility

_(A/N: This is a story about an abusive relationship. Please be warned: it deals with canon-typical themes including rape, abuse and mind control, and goes heavier on themes of depression. Jessica's head is not a healthy place to be.)_

* * *

 **i. with great power comes zero responsibility**

There were two of them. Thugs. Stealing a guy's wallet, beating him bloody in the process. She wasn't trying to be a hero. Didn't hunt criminals or monitor police broadcasts or anything like that. It was late evening, quiet, she was walking home. The thugs were unlucky. Wrong time, wrong place.

She stopped them. Threw them around, mostly, bodies smacking against tarmac, an iron railing, a car. Not exactly graceful – she'd never trained for this. But the thugs got the message. They ran. Job done.

Meanwhile, the guy they had tried to mug was flat-out on the sidewalk like a slab of meat. Breathing raspy. She hurried over to check on him–

The sound of clapping rang through the night air. With it came a delighted voice: "All right, yes!"

Jessica straightened up slowly, assessing this potential new threat. She hadn't expected there to be witnesses. Certainly not applause. The applause was coming from three people, a man and two women, and it was the man who had spoken.

"That was absolutely tremendous," the man continued. British. Fancy coat, fancy suit. "I thought I was good – _you_ are a sight to behold." He glanced at his companions. "Isn't she amazing?" The women nodded and smiled. "You bore me. Leave, go on."

And just like that, they did. They'd gone from smiling and hanging on to his arm to walking away, heels clacking on the sidewalk. Jessica stared, but a small groan from somewhere near her feet reminded her that she was trying to help someone, not perform for an audience of one, no matter how appreciative he was.

She bent down to help the man on the ground.

"Leave him, he's fine."

The British guy again. Jessica brushed her hair away from her face and found her voice through sheer incredulity. "He is not fine. Either help me help him or take a hike."

She was checking the pulse of the guy who had been attacked when the British man moved forward and spoke again. "Did you not hear me? I said leave him. Stand up."

The fuck?

Her brows creased. "What are you on? Get out of my face."

She dismissed him with a flick of her hand, staying crouched down until she lifted the guy into a sitting position and then got his arm over her shoulder, pulling him up. He was a dead weight and she needed to get him to a hospital, but she still had this British asshole to deal with. He hadn't gone away. He was looking at her with a strange, fascinated expression, the way a child might stare at a tiger in a zoo.

More to the point, he was in her way.

Jessica glared at him. "I _said_ get out of my face. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Well," he said. "Good question. Surprising question. I think I'm like you."

"What?"

He gave her a significant look, then turned to the guy leaning on her shoulder. "You are absolutely fine. You can stand up and walk without any problems. Now go home."

And just like that, a guy who had been doubled over and breathing heavily straightened up and walked off as if he hadn't been kicked and punched in the gut, as if his bruises had healed, as if the incident hadn't happened at all. Jessica whirled around to watch him go, her heart thumping, and almost chased or called after him but he wasn't the cause of the strange surreal feeling in her stomach.

The other man was. She turned back. Looked at him. Dark hair, thin, tall, smartly dressed, and watching her with an intense curiosity.

"You did something."

"So did you." His rejoinder was swift. "Beating up those thugs, saving a man's life. You're quite something, aren't you?"

She wasn't prepared to admit it. "I work out. Why did he walk off like that?"

"Because I told him to."

Jessica hesitated, her frown deepening. She didn't know what to make of him. He was a self-assured asshole, yes, she'd already figured that one out. But was he for real? She glanced back, thinking that she should chase after the injured man after all, but he'd already disappeared around the corner. Shit.

Back to the stranger. "What about his injuries? Did you cure him?"

He'd done _something_. Something that allowed a victim of a mugging to walk away.

"Mmm, sort of." He shrugged, hands in pockets. "Seems like we have a lot to talk about. I was about to find somewhere to eat. What do you say to introductions over dinner?"

* * *

She could have walked away. That was her first mistake. Why didn't she walk away?

* * *

He took her to some Chinese place. Fancy, like him. She was wearing a busted leather jacket and gloves, neither of which she took off even after sitting down, and she raised an eyebrow when a waiter came over to light a candle for their table. They ordered food, and she didn't object when he suggested a bottle of red wine. She wasn't one to turn down a drink.

"I assume you're paying for this."

"Of course," he said. "So, what's your name?"

"Jones, Jessica Jones."

"No, no, no, your superhero name. You must have one."

She gave him a look. "Jessica Jones."

"Oh." He looked disappointed for a moment before shrugging it off. "Rather prosaic, but it's fine. Pleasure to meet you, Jessica Jones."

And he held out his hand across the table, his features lighting up with a smile. Charming bastard. She shook his hand with some reluctance and then settled back in her chair.

"And you are?"

"Oh – I'm Kilgrave."

She waited for him to say something else. He didn't. "Kilgrave? That's it? What is that, a first name or a last name? Don't tell me it's your superhero name."

He smiled. "All right, I won't. It's the name I go by. Like Banksy or Bono."

She snorted. Right. "Meaning you made it up."

He didn't seem offended, giving a wry shrug. "People like us, it's not always wise to use our real identities. You never know who might track you down."

"People like us?"

"Gifted. You know. People with abilities."

"Who says I'm gifted?"

It was his turn to give her a look. "Come on. I saw you."

No point in denying it. It was why they were here – he was obviously curious about her abilities and she was trying to work out his. She was saved by the waiter coming over to serve their meals, the aroma of steamed fish and jasmine rice making her mouth water. If she'd gone home, she would have bunged something in the microwave. No sense in turning down a free meal either.

Kilgrave lifted his wine glass. " _Bon appetit_."

The wine slipped down her throat like liquid gold. She wiped her mouth on a napkin and decided to play ball. "You're right about me. I don't advertise it. But if some asshole is beating up someone on the street…"

"You're willing to intervene," he finished. "So how strong are you?"

"I could break you like a twig."

"I bet you could. Can you do anything else?"

She took a few seconds to answer while she speared several pieces of fish and guzzled it down along with more wine. Kilgrave watched her with mild amusement. He was being far more fastidious with his food, and she suddenly felt like the woman in that old movie. What was it? _My Fair Lady._

Obviously, no one had ever described her as fair.

"I can fall without hitting the ground." He raised an eyebrow and she shrugged. "It's not flying. It's more like… achieving a great vertical distance."

He chuckled, lifting his wine glass. "Now that you'll have to show me."

She shook her head. "Your turn. What the hell is it that you can do?"

"Like I said. People do what I tell them to."

"Like… mind control?" Ice froze up her spine. She put down her fork. "Are you mind controlling me right now?"

"No. You'd know if I was."

Would she? Jessica had been freaked out by her own powers when she first discovered them, but at least they were straightforward. Mental powers like mind control were invisible. She thought back, replaying their meeting in her mind's eye. The odd things he'd said. That dick move he'd pulled telling her to leave the poor guy who had been mugged alone.

"You tried to," she realised. "You didn't want me to help the man who had been attacked."

"Well, he was fine, I knew I could handle him for you. I wanted to get your attention."

"But it didn't work. So what, I'm immune?" The other option was that he was full of shit and making up a power to get her attention. But she'd witnessed the two women walking away when they were told, the way they'd applauded along with Kilgrave, the mugging victim getting up and walking off like nothing had happened…

Kilgrave shrugged. "Seems so. That makes two firsts. First time I've ever met someone else with super powers. And first time meeting someone immune to mine. I don't think those two things are unrelated. Are you sure you don't have some kind of mental resistance ability? Something that would make you immune?"

She shook her head. "If I do, I didn't know about it. Can you do anything else? You're not a mind reader, are you?"

Christ, he'd be in for a treat if he read her thoughts. _You rat-faced prick_ , she thought loudly, just in case. _If you're in here, fuck off out of my head._

He chuckled, dabbing at his mouth with the napkin. "Sadly not. If I was, I could skip the introductions and go straight to the fun part."

"The fun part?"

"Well, I don't know, a demonstration of your powers. Heroics. Super kinky sex."

She rolled her eyes. "I would crush you."

"You could be gentle."

She had enough food and wine in her belly to be tempted. Jessica put her knife and fork down and crossed her arms over the table. "So, mind control. Sounds convenient."

He smiled. "It is."

Hmm. She messed around with her food, pushing around the rice on her plate. Mind control. It seemed impossible, but then so was leaping up a ten-storey building and she'd done that only yesterday. He looked so… normal.

"What about the women you were with?" He looked blank and she elaborated. "Your cheerleading squad."

Now that she thought about it, it was kind of creepy. Him with the two women hanging on his arm like dolls.

"Oh, we were going to join some friends for dinner but I decided you're much more interesting."

Dinner with friends. That wasn't so creepy. She told herself she wasn't flattered, but he had a disarming smile. It was hard not to smile back. She speared another piece of fish with slightly more force than necessary.

"So you bailed on your friends."

He cut his fish with delicate precision. "I know, bad manners. Still, you only live once. I'll make it up to them later."

"How spontaneous of you." Her sarcasm only seemed to make him smile. "Before you get too interested, you should know that I'm an asshole too. Sure you don't wanna go back to your friends?"

She was giving him an out. He pretended to think about it. "I don't know, we're already halfway through this meal so it'd be two dinners in one day. I don't know if my wallet could take the strain. Or my waistband for that matter."

She snorted. "Mind control powers and still a tightass, huh. Can't you walk out and tell them to forget the check?"

"I could, but that tends to make it difficult for me to come back. They remember later, you see, and then I have to tell the entire staff all over again to let me in next time, it becomes a palaver. Quicker to pay, give a generous tip, and be welcomed back as their favourite customer."

"Really." He was painting a convincing picture, but her instincts told her to double-check. "Hey." She called one of the waiters over, pointing at Kilgrave. "Do you know this guy? Is he a regular?"

Kilgrave cocked his head at her, but his expression was amused rather than dismayed. She wasn't about to pull one over him, unless he was a very good actor.

The waiter looked unsure, but nodded his head. "Yes, ma'am, he is."

"Would you say he's your favourite customer? Does he always leave a tip?"

The waiter rubbed his hands together, now appearing distinctly uncomfortable. "We don't play favourites at this restaurant, ma'am, but of course Mr Kilgrave is a valued customer. I believe he always leaves a generous tip, which, ah, isn't always the case with our British clientele."

"That would be the tourists," Kilgrave said. "Cultural differences. You can go." He waved the waiter away. "Poor man, you had him red as a beetroot. Insulting my fellow countrymen too. What was that, a test? You didn't believe me?"

She shrugged. "If I had your power, I don't know if I'd be so honest."

"Well, I wouldn't claim to be perfect. This power does open doors."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it literally opens doors. Any place you can imagine, any event, any venue, anywhere. I speak to the person in charge and hey presto, they let me through."

Jessica thought about it. She did what he did through physical force, breaking locks and the like. The last time she'd done that had been to threaten her asshole foster mother, which in her opinion was an entirely legitimate use of her powers. Kilgrave's method sounded far smoother, and as far as she could tell from the encounter with the waiter, he seemed to be telling the truth.

It had been a long time since she had used her powers purely for fun.

She tapped her fork against the table. "So if I wanted to take a dip in some rich asshole's private pool…"

He smirked. "You'd have to ask nicely and, if I was feeling generous, I might just grant your wish."

Well, then. There was a wicked gleam in his eyes that suggested her request was nothing new to him. Of course it wasn't. His clothes and that expensive watch and this restaurant told her plenty about his lifestyle, and she'd be surprised if he'd earned it all honestly. She was sitting here wearing a jacket that she hadn't paid for because glass was easy to break. If she had mind control powers, she'd probably use it to help herself too.

Jessica leaned forward, meeting his eyes. "Consider this me asking nicely."

* * *

She probably wasn't the only woman in the world who would have fucked him willingly. He was skinny and sharp-featured and had a ridiculous fondness for purple suits, but he also possessed a palpable confidence and happy-go-lucky attitude that she could only assume was a result of getting everything he wanted all the fucking time.

Even so, she was the only woman in the world to have in fact fucked him willingly. She'd thought about it. Any woman who might have reciprocated his attention would still have had her autonomy taken away from her the moment she stepped into Kilgrave's orbit. They never got the chance to consent.

But she did. It was the guilt and regret more than anything else that tore her apart. It physically pained her. The thought of it made her stomach clench, made her queasy. She'd taste bile in her throat and then she'd shake and shiver like she wanted to claw out of her own body.

There wasn't anywhere she hadn't let him touch her.

* * *

He told the couple who lived in the apartment to go out and have fun and not come back until morning. He and Jessica were borrowing their place for the night. Totally harmless, and besides, they were rich assholes, so who cared?

She trod on their lovely soft carpet with her dirty old boots, opened their fridge to find more wine, peeked in their wardrobe to look at their fancy clothes.

"You'd look good in that," Kilgrave said at her shoulder, leaning forward to run his fingers over a shimmery silver dress.

She scoffed. "No, I wouldn't."

She didn't take anything. (The wine didn't count.) Somehow that felt like a step too far.

They went to the pool. A whole room devoted to a pool. The water lapped softly at the pool's edge. The walls and ceiling echoed with the movement of the ripples, like the shimmer of that silver dress. She threw her jacket down on the sun lounger and sat down to kick off her boots. Kilgrave sat opposite her on the other lounger, picking up a fluffy white towel that had been left there.

"You don't have anything to swim in," he observed.

"It's called skinny dipping." She pulled her T-shirt over her head and started unzipping her jeans. "You in?"

He laughed. Unbuttoned his jacket. Of course he was. They shucked off their clothes and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't stealing side glances at him in much the same way he didn't even bother to hide the fact that he was looking at her.

She'd saved a life. She had reason to celebrate.

They jumped in the pool together like a couple of big kids, the smack of the water shocking her with a rush of cold. She kicked her legs and got her head above water, hair plastered to her skin. Kilgrave emerged a second later gasping for breath, then caught her eyes and laughed. She grinned back and when he started towards her she deliberately swam away, heading for the other end of the pool.

They swam a couple of lengths. She was easily faster than him in the water; he had no chance of catching her.

"Slow down," he protested.

"Speed up," she taunted him.

She did another length and then turned back to meet him in the middle instead, treading water.

"I swim regularly," he said. "You're just… extremely athletic."

"Nice excuse," she said, but there was no venom in her tone. He swam over to the side to rest against the edge of the pool and she joined him, staying low down in the water so that only her head and the top of her shoulders were visible.

"This is fun." He smiled down at her, and his eyes were sincere. "I'm glad I ditched my night out for you."

She inched closer, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder. "Most guys find me intimidating."

He met her gaze. "Is that before or after they find out how strong you are?"

She smiled. He had wit, she liked that about him. It occurred to her that there was something else too: he wasn't afraid of her. Even though she was immune to his power and therefore free to punch him whenever she wished, he hadn't shown any fear. That was refreshing.

And she wasn't afraid of him either. She had no reason to be.

She set her other hand on his other shoulder, facing him so that their bodies were almost but not quite touching. Her smile became a smirk. "Either-or."

She liked his confidence, then. The way he looked at her. The way he cupped her cheek with his hand, the way his mouth met hers. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

* * *

"I started it," she said to Trish. "It's all my fault."


	2. we made a promise

**ii. we made a promise, we owed it to each other**

It wasn't the first time Jessica had woken up in someone else's house with a stranger. It was the first time that the house didn't belong to the stranger in question.

Kilgrave was awake and dressed already, sitting on the edge of the bed with a breakfast tray in his lap. "Rise and shine," he crooned.

"Ugh," she said, sitting up. God, the pillows were soft. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine. I brought you breakfast in bed."

She blinked, her mind still foggy. On the tray was a coffee pot, a glass of orange juice, toast, butter, marmalade, a croissant, grapes and a fruits of the forest yoghurt. The smell of it drifted over to her nose and her stomach rumbled. Was she in a hotel? Large bed, soft, quality sheets, the walls painted in a tasteful shade of eggshell grey. Definitely not home.

She'd had a few drinks. Saved a man. Met a stranger with mysterious powers. Then…

Jessica scrunched up her nose. "Did you steal this?"

Christ, she was in someone else's house. She'd slept in someone else's bed and she was being given someone else's breakfast. She hadn't even been drunk. Tipsy at best.

Kilgrave looked affronted at the very idea. "I made this for you. Thought we'd have a bit of everything. What do you usually have for breakfast?"

"Whiskey," she said, but she took the tray anyway. Kilgrave grinned and popped one of the grapes into his mouth.

Somewhere down the hall, a door opened, footsteps following through. Kilgrave glanced over at the bedroom door. "Sounds like they're back. I'll go check on them."

She caught his sleeve before he could stand up. "Will you pay them for us staying here? Call it expenses."

She didn't know why she said it. A sudden bout of morning guilt. Kind of like a hangover, only less easy to get over.

Kilgrave met her eyes and nodded. "Sure."

* * *

He asked her if she had somewhere to be. A big part of her wanted to disappear, get him to drop her off near Hell's Kitchen, call it a one night stand and be done with it. But she couldn't shake the image of how easy it had been for him to make that couple let them spend the night. Like he'd said, his power literally opened doors.

She had no job. No money. No place of her own. She'd quit everything she'd ever tried.

"I still have questions," she told him brusquely, and he grinned.

They went to a little café and she watched him go to the front of the line, silencing any objections. She felt – God, it was so stupid but she felt _good_ – seeing his power and knowing she wasn't affected by it. Like she was better than all those other weak-willed morons. He returned with cappuccino for himself and a black coffee for her.

The coffee scalded her tongue. She fixed Kilgrave with a level gaze. "Ever robbed a bank?"

He laughed. "Well, there's a conversation opener. Can't say I have. That would attract quite a lot of attention." He raised his eyebrows. "Have _you_ ever robbed a bank?"

She shook her head. "Maybe when I'm homeless, I'll give it a shot. Until then I can't really justify it."

He must have read something in her face because he took the comment seriously and not as the crack she meant it to be. "Is that likely to happen?"

"No," she said. "The friend I'm staying with, Trish, she wouldn't let that happen. I'm between jobs, you know how it is."

"Not really," he said, and for a moment they looked at each other, the truth of his statement hanging in the air, and then he took a sip of his cappuccino which left him with a frothy moustache and Jessica had to control herself from breaking into a fit of laughter. "What?" he said.

She pointed.

He wiped his mouth with good humour and then leaned forward. "How is it that someone with your gifts doesn't have a job? You could do anything you wanted."

She could, huh. Trish said that too. Jessica shrugged. "I thought about pimping myself out, super strength for hire and all, but they'd probably put me on some government register. I'm not too big on that."

He nodded. "Nor me."

"Trish wants me to do the hero thing full-time. I considered it, but then I looked at my credit statement. Turns out the pay is shitty. You can't be poor and a hero."

There was some bitterness in her tone. She'd blame the coffee, but he'd made her think of Trish and everything that Trish had done for her. Financial support, a place to live, an endless list of contacts for potential jobs or set-ups for dates. She was the strong one, literally, so how had she ended up relying on Trish for everything?

Kilgrave wasn't buying her self-pity. He shook his head at her. "Come on, that's not true. You stopped a crime last night, I call that heroic."

"Yeah, well. I do some good every once in a while. Haven't made a career out of it. What do you do?"

"In general?"

"No, for a living. You probably don't need a job, do you?"

She was curious. What did a man with mind control powers do with his time? There were so many doors to open. He could go anywhere, do anything. What sort of life did he lead?

Kilgrave smiled, sipping his cappuccino. "I do whatever I want."

"So what do you want? You can tell people what to do… You could take over the world."

She was joking. Half-joking. If he wanted to abuse his powers like that, then presumably he would have done it by now.

He wrinkled his nose. "Christ, no. Think of how much work that would be. You'd have people constantly trying to take you down, and for what? Wasted effort."

"So you're too lazy to be a super villain. Good to know."

He laughed. "Be grateful for that. Like you, I prefer to stay under the radar. I try to live a normal life, as much as possible anyway."

Like her. But not like her, she thought. Not if what she'd seen so far of him was typical.

She finished off her coffee, placing it down on the table-top where there was a ring of spilled liquid on the surface. Someone would have to come and clean that up. She'd worked in a place like this before, back when she was in college. Back then she'd expected to move on to something better.

She looked up at him. "Normal life is shitty. Normal life is washing dishes and taking out the trash and buying toilet paper. Three things I bet you've never done."

"Touché. Is there a point you're trying to make here?"

"I don't know. You seem like you have your shit together. Makes me wonder where I went wrong."

"That bad, huh?"

He was sympathetic. He listened. She told him things that she'd only told Trish – and Trish was a sympathetic listener too but she'd heard it a million times before and she wouldn't shut up with her superhero idea. Kilgrave didn't push her to be a better person. He didn't say, yes, you should do it, you should wear a cape and fight crime. He made doing whatever the hell she wanted sound like the easiest and most natural thing in the world. He could get her anything she wanted too, he didn't say, but she was thinking it the entire time.

God, she was selfish.

* * *

"How's the job hunt going?" was the first thing out of Trish's mouth when Jessica returned home. "Did you find something?"

Jessica wanted to punch her. She rolled her eyes, took the cup of coffee that Trish offered her and slumped down on Trish's couch.

"No, I… I wanted to talk to you about something else."

"Oh?" Trish sat down too, manicured hands clasped in her lap. She'd been a hot mess only a few years ago. Child star turned drug addict. Rehab. The works. But she'd turned her life around and suddenly Jessica was the dead weight dragging her down. "What is it?"

"I met a guy."

That got Trish's interest. She raised her eyebrows. "I take it that's why you didn't come home last night."

There was no surprise in Trish's voice. Jessica had done it before and Trish hadn't bothered her about it or gotten unduly worried. That was one thing Jessica did appreciate about being a lodger here: they both recognised that they were grown-ass adults and they didn't have to constantly check in on each other. The only thing Trish asked was that Jessica didn't bring a guy home without prior warning – hence the occasional nights spent at a motel.

"So what about him?" Trish continued. "Is he cute?"

"No," she said honestly. "Cute is not the word I would use. He's… he's like me. Gifted."

Trish's eyes widened. "Someone else with abilities? You mean, he's strong like you?"

"No, his power is different. He… controls minds. Literally, people do what he says. I saw it happen."

"Mind control." Trish shifted in her seat, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Wow. That would make me nervous."

Jessica shook her head. "It doesn't work on me. He thinks because I have powers, I don't know. We talked and I asked him to…"

She stopped. Her insides constricted. The prospect of saying it out loud suddenly felt awful. Morally awful.

Trish looked concerned. "What?"

How was she going to explain this? Jessica exhaled, took another gulp of her coffee and then stared down at its contents as if that would give her some insight.

"Do you remember when that asshole was being an asshole at the bar? The one I beat at the stupid strength tester game." She looked up at Trish, who nodded. "I enjoyed that. I used my ability to get one over someone who deserved to be humiliated and it felt good. I was having fun with my powers and I wanted to feel that again. So I told this guy I wanted to go to a private pool. We broke into someone's house and had sex on their bed."

There. She'd said it. Trish blinked. Obviously that wasn't where she had expected the story to go.

"Wow," she said again. Then she frowned. "But this is a guy who controls minds. Jess, are you sure…?"

Jessica cut her off. "I'm sure. I asked him to do it – it was my idea. I stopped a mugging right before I decided to celebrate by breaking into someone's home." Good deed, bad deed. If there was karma in the universe, she'd fucked that one up fast. She let out a breath and looked up at Trish. "You can tell me I'm stupid. Irresponsible, whatever. Go on, I'll take it."

There was a pause. Trish held her gaze and then sighed, shaking her head. "You're not stupid. Irresponsible, a little, but I know you'll always do the right thing."

"I just told you that I didn't."

"You said you stopped a mugging. That's a good thing. You're not a bad person, Jess."

It wasn't the first time Trish had said that. It wasn't the first time Jessica had wobbled about shit like this either. She hadn't always stayed on the right side of the law.

She shook her head. "I've had these powers for thirteen years and in all that time I've probably done more harm than good. I was thinking he could get me an apartment. He'd solve a lot of my problems."

Trish bit her lip. "Jess… That's a lot to ask of a guy you just met. You don't need to rely on him for financial help – you know I can–"

"No," she said. "I'm not taking any more of your money. I don't want handouts. I want to get my shit together."

Trish was smart enough not to press the issue. This was a familiar conversation, complete with the familiar uncomfortable sensation prickling her skin, as if the room was shrinking and pressing down on them, or she was losing air. Neither of them wanted to go down that particular rabbit hole.

Trish put down her cup on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch. "Do you want to see him again?"

There was the question.

* * *

He'd given her his phone number. The ball was in her court and she stewed for a couple of days. Let him stew. One or the other.

Trish was right. Trish was always fucking right. Mind control in itself should be enough to make anyone nervous. People were nothing without free will and Kilgrave was awfully casual about taking it away. But he wasn't controlling her. She had free will, she could do anything she wanted, and it didn't sit right with her to write someone off because they had abilities. He was like her, he was the first gifted person she had ever met and he wasn't at all like the ones she saw on the news all the time. He wasn't a celebrity or a vigilante. He wasn't a superhero. He was just living.

Oh, boy, was he living. She met him at a five star hotel. This, she gathered, was normal for him.

"Took your time," he said.

"I was overthinking," she told him. "Overcomplicating."

He cocked his head. "How so?"

"Don't worry about it. I don't want to. Does this place have a bar?"

* * *

Did it matter that she'd enjoyed it, those early days and nights? Did it make a difference?

"You didn't know," Trish said. "You couldn't have known."

She shook her head. "I knew what he could do. I saw. I just didn't care."

Attraction was a spark, lightning in a bottle. Her skin lit up with the memory of it. Goosebumps. There was what he did to others and there was what he did with her. Two compartments, easy to separate.

Easy at first.

* * *

In the morning they ate scrambled eggs and waffles drizzled in maple syrup. It was fucking great.

She threw her head back on the ridiculously plump pillow and burped her contentment. "I could stay here all day."

He stretched out beside her, skinny-limbed and tousle-haired, and she thought he looked better like that, without the trappings that turned him into a prick in a suit. He had brown eyes. Expressive eyes. They gleamed with interest as he looked at her.

"I could too," he said, reaching out to brush his fingertips over hers.

A pleasant shiver ran through her skin. "Can you last that long?"

He smiled. "Try me."

She rolled him over, pinning him to the bed, and the way his eyes widened in surprise was almost comical. But he kissed her like she wanted, and she took hold of his hands and put them where she wanted, and later on she tried to work out whether he enjoyed it so much because he was giving up control or because she was a novelty. Maybe a little of column A, a little of column B.

She liked it too. Flexing her muscles a little. Not enough to hurt him. But enough to make it fun.

* * *

 _Decadence_ was a word that Jessica knew but had never expected to describe her life. It crossed her mind that evening when they were lounging on the bed drinking champagne and eating grapes, like Roman lords and ladies wearing fluffy bathrobes instead of togas.

They finished the bottle and to her surprise Kilgrave refused to order another.

"You can get anything you want, what's another bottle?"

"I don't get drunk," he said.

This seemed an absurd notion. "Why?"

"Because being drunk means not being in control. It means potentially doing something stupid. I can't turn my power off. If I tell someone to do something, they do it, so if I slip…"

He left the thought unfinished, and with it many horrible possibilities crowded into her mind. "Oh. Shit."

"Yeah," he said grimly. "Shit."

She drained the last of her champagne before setting the glass aside. "That's… tough. I didn't think anything in your life would be tough."

He sat up, looking over at her. "Most people don't understand, but I think you do. With your power, you could… Well, you could break things. People."

"I've broken a few things in my time." She gave him a look, smiling back. "And the occasional person, but only if they deserved it."

That got a chuckle. "Of course." Then he snapped his fingers. "That reminds me! Your other power – flying. I wanna see."

"It's not flying," she protested, though half-heartedly. "It's more like I tell gravity to go jump off a bridge."

"Well, either way, I look forward to it. Come on, show me."

He reached for her hand, pulled her to her feet. "Where?" she grumbled, but she was already pulling on her vest top, searching around for her jeans.

"The balcony," he said.

They were on one of the higher floors, the traffic forty storeys below. Dressed just enough to go out in public, she allowed Kilgrave to take her hand and stepped out to the balcony with him. The breeze skimmed over her and she breathed in the fresher air, taking in the view over the Manhattan skyline. The sun was setting. The sky was inky blue.

"Plenty of skyscrapers," Kilgrave went on, leaning over the railing to have a look too. "How far can you go?"

She considered. The nearest building was immediately opposite them on the street and there was enough light to see across to the roof. If she took a running leap…

She tapped Kilgrave on the shoulder, nudging him aside to give her space. "Watch."

Doors to the balcony flung wide open, check. Table and chairs shoved aside, check. Now she had all the space she needed. Jessica steeled herself, fixed her eyes on the target – the distant rooftop – and charged. A sprint from the bedroom to the balcony, a quick hop on to the railing, knees bent, getting a good spring – and then up, up, launching into the air and her stomach leapt in exhilaration as she jumped the gap with ease and rolled over to land with a thump on the rooftop.

Landings. She'd never quite managed to stick those properly.

From the hotel building: cheering and applause. She felt her cheeks heat up and smiled to herself. His enthusiasm was infectious.

"Look at you go!" he said when she made the leap back. "You're amazing, Jessica. That was beautiful."

It was hard to overstate how gratifying that was to hear. The praise felt like it meant more, somehow, coming from someone else with gifts.

She was smiling more than she could remember in a long time. "Thanks."

He cupped her cheeks in his hands. "You're beautiful."

She looked up at his face silhouetted in the dying light, the genuine appreciation in his eyes. She felt her heart flutter. It was a sensation not unlike flying.

Maybe he wasn't a prick after all.

* * *

Later, after she'd pretty much exhausted him and they'd turned the lights out, cocooned in the warm dark, he turned over to face her and she made out his eyes in the twilight.

"I have to ask," he said. "How did you get your powers? Were you born with them?"

They hadn't talked about it. A whole day together and the obvious topic hadn't come up. Jessica had been avoiding it; she surmised by his lack of mention that he'd been avoiding it too.

She met his gaze. "No. It was an accident."

"What happened?"

"If I tell you, it might give you nightmares." He didn't say anything and she exhaled. "Car crash. I was fourteen. I was with my brother and my parents, but they didn't make it. I found out about my powers after I left the hospital."

"I'm sorry," he said. "Losing your family… That must have been tough. Did something happen at the hospital?"

She bit her lip. "I don't know. There are gaps in my memory. I was missing for weeks before I turned up at the hospital. I think I was experimented on, but the assholes that did it didn't think to give me an explanation."

"How mysterious."

Yeah, she thought. Mysterious. She'd had nightmares about it before. Not so much now. Now she didn't think about it – it was a fact of her life, pointless to dwell on. Whoever had done this to her hadn't bothered to get in touch, so as far as she was concerned she owed them nothing.

Losing her family was harder to get over. She never really had.

"What about you?" she asked. "Same question."

She watched his face close off, a mirror image of herself. "I don't like to talk about it either. Long story short, I was experimented on as a child. One day the experiment worked and I used my powers to escape. I suppose I've been running ever since."

She frowned. "Running?"

"Well, staying under the radar. A power like mine is something people want to exploit. I don't want that to happen and I don't want to be experimented on again."

He was right, she thought. If he was ever coerced by some evil organisation, like whoever had experimented on her, he could do terrible damage.

She wondered if he could make people kill themselves. Was his ability that absolute?

"So we were both lab rats," she mused. "Maybe your scientists were the same as mine."

"Mine were in England," he said, "so maybe not, but who knows."

Who knew? The similarities were striking, but then she supposed that there were only so many ways to acquire super powers. He had been a child, she had been a teenager… She remembered the confusion, the sense of utter bewilderment, not understanding why or how she had been given these abilities. Had there ever been a purpose? Was she meant to use these powers for something?

It appeared that Kilgrave's thoughts had gone in quite a different direction: his face lit up and he reached out under the covers to take her hand, distracting her.

"I have an idea. Let's make a pact."

She looked at him. "A pact?"

"We both escaped from the people that made us. I think we'd like to keep it that way. So let's help each other. We'll protect each other from anyone who wants to take advantage of our powers. If they get you, I'll come rescue you. And if they get me, you'll do the same. Do you promise?"

She blinked at him. He was older than she was but his face looked so boyish at times. He had this expression that was excited and hopeful and affectionate all at once, like kids making pinky promises or drawing hearts on each other's notebooks or whatever kids did these days.

Still, it wasn't a bad idea. It made sense. Jessica had never considered herself one to team up with anyone else – not that she'd had any offers before. But the idea that someone else might have her back, someone who actually did have considerable power of their own... Yeah, it made sense.

And she liked him. She liked the idea of having him on her side.

"Okay," she said. "I promise."


	3. who wants a job in this economy anyway

**iii. who wants a job in this shitty ass economy anyway**

Two weeks went by.

She learned a lot about Kilgrave in those two weeks. A lot, but not enough.

She learned that he had a bunch of favourite restaurants that he visited regularly. She learned that he adored sex and had an appetite that exceeded hers, though not the stamina to match. She learned that he liked fine things, not just for himself, but for her too. He bought her gifts: earrings, make-up, perfume. He also constantly wanted to do things: a walk in Central Park, a visit to an art gallery, a Broadway musical. He told her that she couldn't wear jeans in the restaurants that he liked, they wouldn't allow it. Did she own any nice dresses?

No, no, she did not.

He infuriated and charmed her in equal measure. In the first week she forgot about job hunting or apartment hunting or anything else that grown-ups did and decided to hell with it. She could go anywhere, do anything. Wherever they wanted, they walked in.

At the start of the second week he took her to a spa which was not an experience she'd ever been interested in, but she found herself enjoying a chance to relax. She had a massage, a manicure, and various beauty treatments. She swam in the pool, wearing a bikini this time. She sweated her ass off in the sauna.

It was like taking a timeout from being Jessica Jones, girl with leather jacket and no parents.

A less relaxing moment came when Kilgrave removed an old lady from a sun lounger that he wanted Jessica to have. The lady was getting up slowly; he rolled his eyes.

"Hurry up. Come on, quickly!"

It was almost comical. The old lady moved like she'd been given an electric shock. She hauled herself up, visibly trembling, and her foot gave way. She almost slipped; Jessica caught her. She righted the old lady with a firm hand on her shoulder.

"You're good, take your time. There's no rush." She shot Kilgrave a dirty look as she said it. "You could have hurt her."

"I think she's in good hands," was Kilgrave's response, and they left it at that. It was an awkward moment, sure, but an accident. No one was hurt.

At the end of the second week he took her shopping and she began to have second thoughts.

"I'm not some doll for you to dress up!" This when he attempted to thrust a sequinned purple dress in her face. "I need clothes for an interview, not your jack-off fantasies."

"You don't need to do that. I can tell them to hire you."

"You told them to offer the interview. They need to choose to hire me, or I'll be fired before the end of my first day."

She knew how his power worked by now, or at least what she'd gleaned from observing him and what he'd told her. His mind control didn't last, it wore off after a day or so which meant that even if she did get a company to hire her, they could regret it almost immediately. Kilgrave could return every day and keep compelling them, of course, but that was a pretty dumb plan and she doubted that he'd want to waste his time like that. He'd clearly never had a job in his life.

He leaned against the door of the fitting room. "You know it'll be boring. You're not even qualified, why bother?"

"Because unlike you, I want to earn a wage."

"You don't need to earn a wage. I can get you anything you want."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Dad. I'm still doing the interview."

"You don't have the skills or experience. Your CV is frankly dreadful–"

"My what?"

"Your CV – résumé," he corrected himself. "It's poorly written and shows you up as a complete flake who hasn't stayed in a single job for more than ten months and hasn't been employed by anyone in the last two. No one will want to employ you."

She felt like she'd been knifed. Jessica shoved the purple dress at him without another word and shut the fitting room door. There she leaned against the mirror and took deep breaths, surprised to find tears pricking her eyes.

The room was all mirrors. She saw her reflection, weak and weepy, and swallowed the lump in her throat.

* * *

She didn't get the job.

* * *

"Sorry, babe," he told her, kissing the top of her head. "If you see another job you want, I'll get you an interview. Just say the word."

She snuggled into his shoulder, feeling small and alone on the couch. Trish's couch. "No. I have to do this myself."

"No," he mused. "Not a word I hear often. It's funny. I don't mind hearing it from you. If you think you can do it yourself, go ahead. I'm with you all the way."

Her mouth tightened. She didn't say anything. He was stroking her hair like she was a stray cat that he had adopted. She might as well be.

"When does Trish get back?" Kilgrave asked, breaking the silence.

"She'll be back by six. After her radio show."

"Trish Walker." He rolled the name around his tongue in that accent of his, relishing it. "Child star turned radio show host. I can't believe you two grew up together, you couldn't be more different. I'm looking forward to meeting her."

They were having dinner together, the three of them. Officially introducing Trish to her new boyfriend. It had been Trish's idea. Jessica still wasn't sure how she felt about it – how she felt about Kilgrave. It was hard to believe that they'd been dating for less than a month. They'd become so intimate so quickly.

"We've got thirty minutes left by my count," Kilgrave continued, looking at his watch. "Aren't you supposed to be making dinner?"

Jessica sat up, her heart thudding in her chest. "Shit! I was supposed to be making a hotpot, I even looked up the recipe."

She hardly ever cooked. Frozen dinner or takeout was more her thing. This was meant to be a special occasion. Kilgrave's idea.

"Hey, hey, don't panic." He took her arm, stilling her, and kissed her forehead. "Leave it to me."

Kilgrave didn't cook either, of course. Another thing she doubted he'd ever done in his life. But what he did do was go over to a nearby restaurant and persuade their chef to hand-deliver three plates of spaghetti bolognese.

Then Trish arrived home.

"You must be Kilgrave," she said graciously, holding out her hand for him to shake.

Kilgrave might not have sensed it, but Jessica could see the tightness in the line of Trish's shoulder and her mouth, the wariness in her eyes. She hadn't forgotten about Kilgrave's power. It was something she kept probing with Jessica: _are you_ sure _that he isn't controlling you?_

Sometimes she wasn't so sure. She deliberately denied him every so often to remind herself that she could.

Kilgrave took Trish's hand and kissed it. "And you must be Trish. It's an absolute pleasure to meet you, Jessica's told me so much about you – and I've listened to your radio show, of course. Who wouldn't want to wake up to the voice of Trish Walker?"

"Thank you," Trish replied, her brows creasing, but she expressed the appropriate amount of delight when Kilgrave invited her over to the dinner table, claiming that Jessica had prepared dinner all by herself – with a little assistance from him.

Jessica bit back a smile, though somewhere in her stomach she felt less than comfortable. If Trish saw through the lie, however, she didn't show it and the three of them sat down for dinner like old friends, Kilgrave leaning over to pour the wine. The food did look good.

To her utter surprise, Kilgrave and Trish got on like a house on fire. They started by bonding over the wine which apparently was a very good choice on Trish's part. Jessica had no clue what they were talking about, she was no connoisseur. If there was alcohol, she drank it. Then he complimented Trish's taste in interior décor. Then they talked about him being British. She could tell that Trish was trying to subtly probe him about his background, but Kilgrave was wise to it.

"I noticed that your shows have become more topical recently," he said, changing the subject, and Jessica wondered when on earth Kilgrave had started listening to Trish's radio show. He'd never mentioned it. "Specifically, there seems to be a focus on, well, people like us."

He indicated Jessica with a thumb.

"I think the world should know that there are people with gifts out there," Trish said, "and how much good they're doing for us. I've been trying to get Jessica to do an interview for forever and she keeps saying no."

"I keep saying no because I don't want assholes knocking on my door every day wanting me to save a kitten in a tree."

She didn't want to be a celebrity. She'd seen what that did to people.

"It's my door and it's well-protected," Trish corrected her. "We could change your name. Make it anonymous."

"Jessica has a point," Kilgrave said. "Attracting attention can be dangerous. You talked about a masked vigilante in one of your interviews. He put a man in hospital for a month."

"A man who was abusing his daughter."

"Even so, there's a reason he wore a mask. He committed a crime and you called him a hero. I doubt the police would have agreed with you."

That was Kilgrave's justification for staying under the radar. Beneath his outward confidence he had a paranoid streak.

"Well," said Trish, "I'm sure that's a risk he was willing to take. It's worth it to help people."

"But is he really helping people?" Kilgrave was in full animated flow and Jessica couldn't tell if he meant what he was saying or he was enjoying an argument. "He's a vigilante, taking the law into his own hands. Ultimately what he's doing is damaging to society, because he's undermining the system of law that our society is based on."

Whether he was serious or not, Trish was taking the bait. But she loved this kind of thing. She talked about it passionately on her radio show, defending Jessica to an audience that didn't know her about things that Jessica hadn't done.

"People have a right to defend themselves and to defend others. The right to bear arms is enshrined in the constitution. Obviously he took it a little farther than most, but…"

Kilgrave chuckled. "Well, now you're starting to sound like a gun nut. Constitutional rights! I doubt the founding fathers were prepared for people like us."

"If you saw that somebody was in trouble, wouldn't you use your powers to help them? Jessica said you have mind control, I mean, that's amazing. You could stop any crime before it happened."

Trish glanced at her and Jessica wondered not for the first time if that was a spark of envy in her friend's eyes.

"Sure, I've helped people," Kilgrave said. "I don't advertise it."

Jessica had said the same thing to Kilgrave. She helped people if the opportunity came up. She didn't advertise it.

He'd never said he did that too.

"Can you give an example?"

"Jessica and I helped out a guy who was being mugged. That was how we first met, wasn't it, Jessica?"

He looked at her for confirmation and she nodded.

Trish sipped her wine. "I know about that, I mean something else."

"Okay, stop with the questions." Kilgrave glanced at Jessica, who frowned. Had he just…? "I'll give you one more example. This was before I met Jessica. I was in a jazz club one evening when I saw a man slip something into a girl's drink. Very pretty girl, she didn't know him, she didn't see it, it was obvious where that was going. I told him to down the drink instead and leave the bar. She was very grateful."

Jessica stared at him. "You saved a girl from being date raped."

He looked rather pleased with himself. "Yes, I did."

"You never mentioned that."

"Never came up." He raised an eyebrow. "Should I have mentioned it? I don't want to brag."

"No…" She shrugged, at a loss. No, there wasn't any particular reason he should have mentioned it.

Trish thought it was a great story. She wanted to interview him about it, a suggestion that Kilgrave quickly shot down. But then they started yapping about the other guests Trish had interviewed and Jessica swiftly lost the will to live. She felt like the third wheel in her own home. Trish's home. She downed her wine and excused herself, sloping off to bed.

Why did she feel so miserable? She should be happy that her boyfriend and her best friend were getting along. She should be glad to know that Kilgrave had used his powers for good. That he'd helped people.

Kilgrave didn't leave her alone for long. She recognised his silhouette entering the bedroom, the weight and shape of him sitting down on the bed.

"Jessica? Is something wrong?"

"I'm tired," she said.

"Are you jealous?"

"What? No."

He leaned in, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry. I'm not interested in Trish. She's a vapid has-been who only developed an interest in superheroes to boost ratings for her shitty show."

Jessica blinked. "That's not what you said at the dinner table."

"Well, I was being polite for your sake. I resisted from telling her to shut up. She didn't make it easy."

He was smiling and she smiled back despite herself. His attitude made a change from the men who had ditched Jessica in the past because Trish was the pretty blonde one or the famous one or, worst of all, the rich one. Trish was a business opportunity. Marriage material. Jessica was damaged goods.

Someone had said that to her once. Called her damaged goods. Fucking prick.

Kilgrave pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. She responded a little, but she wasn't in the mood. He tried kissing her again, shifting his weight over her, and she pushed him away.

"What's wrong?"

"I told you. I'm tired."

"I want to make love to you," he breathed. "Come on, Jessica. Cheer up."

It occurred to her that the utterance was a command. Could he make people happy by telling them to be happy? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? She didn't know, but she did know her gut reaction. She wanted to punch him in the face.

"You can't make me be happy," she snapped at him, "and I don't want you to."

There. Proof that he couldn't control her.

Kilgrave frowned in that way he sometimes did when he couldn't understand why she wasn't doing what he told her.

"No need to be stroppy about it. You're in a mood. Why?"

"You told Trish to stop asking questions. You compelled her."

The answer came out almost before she'd thought of it, Jessica surprising herself. She certainly surprised Kilgrave. He blinked, having to think for a second, and then shook his head.

"Oh, come on, that was nothing. A tiny thing. Slip of the tongue."

"You said you wouldn't."

That was Trish's condition before meeting him. She wanted to meet Kilgrave but she didn't want to be compelled.

Kilgrave exhaled, rolling his eyes up to the heavens before looking at her again. "She was prying, and being very annoying about it too. Forget it, it won't happen again. Does she always go on about the hero thing? Pressuring you into doing what she wants?"

Jessica bit her lip, turning her head on the pillow so that she didn't have to look at him. "She tries."

"That's a shame. After everything you've done for her."

He left the thought unfinished and Jessica's imagination did the rest. After everything she'd done for Trish… saving her from an abusive mother, from a string of poor decisions, the drugs, the rehab… Now Trish had everything and Jessica had fuck all to show for it, and Trish seemed to think that it was her turn to sort Jessica's life out, as if she was entitled to dictate what Jessica's life should look like.

Kilgrave kissed her again, his lips brushing her cheek and then down her neck, and she pushed him away in irritation. She used only a fraction of her strength but it was enough to send him jolting away from her.

"I said I'm tired. Let me sleep."

There was a moment's pause, and then she felt his weight leave the bed.

"Fine. Be a moody bitch."

 _Yeah_ , she thought. _I will be._ She curled up under the covers. It was almost a comforting thought.

* * *

She figured she had a choice. Either she could continue to be a moody bitch about her living situation and piss off everyone around her, or she could do something about it.

"You know what I hate?" she said to Trish the next day. "Self-pity."

Trish sipped her coffee, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean me. Sorry about ending things early last night. I was wallowing. If I'm being truthful… I look at you and I feel second-best."

It was hard to admit. But she felt better for doing it. Trish's expression was pitying, as she had expected. Jessica busied herself by attempting to make coffee with this new coffee-maker that she hadn't figured out yet.

"Jess…"

"Don't look at me like that. I know what I have to do. I'll have a job in a week, no matter how crappy. I guarantee it."

Trish nodded. "Okay. What about Kilgrave?"

She probably could have asked Trish for help with the coffee-maker, Jessica thought, as she pressed the wrong button and accidentally made herself a latte. But that wasn't going to happen.

"What about him?"

Kilgrave had gone off in a huff that morning after she'd denied him sex twice, once the night before and again when he'd expected a wake-up blow job. Boo fucking hoo.

"He's charming," Trish said, "but I saw the look on your face last night. You're getting bored of him."

"I'm not bored, he's just… he can be a prick. The way he treats people sometimes…" She shook her head. "I can handle him."

"But you don't have to. You know that, right? Just because he has powers like you doesn't mean–"

She interrupted. "Okay, Trish, I'm gonna be straight with you. This busybody interfering thing you're doing, it's exactly why I feel suffocated. Kilgrave has nothing to do with my mood right now. I'm angry because I need to get away from you."

For a moment she saw the hurt in Trish's eyes, like a physical wound. Then her expression hardened.

"Fine." Trish stood up, picking up her handbag. "Then don't expect me to call."

* * *

She walked out.

Then she called Kilgrave, since she didn't exactly have another option.

His voice seemed especially silky through the phone. "Of course, darling. I'll find us somewhere to stay. Would you be more amenable to some fun now that you've gotten away from Trish?"

She rolled her eyes. "Christ, if you want your dick sucking just say so."

By this point she was in a taxi, the driver giving her a look through the rear view mirror. The world was full of assholes.

Kilgrave chuckled. "Dirty talk too! You spoil me."

"Fuck off. Text me the address."

She hung up on him. That felt a little better.

* * *

"Trish can suck a dick," she pronounced at the coffee house, "because I have got a job."

"Well done," Kilgrave said. "And with two days to spare."

Yeah, she was proud of that part too. Jessica had said she would get a job within a week and even if she wasn't on speaking terms with Trish right now, she was determined to get that fucking job in a week. So here they were, Jessica with her black coffee and bagel, Kilgrave with a black coffee and something that looked suspiciously like salad, but who cared, she had a job.

"So what is it?" he asked.

"Bar work," she said, and the argument began.

Oh, he didn't want her to work in a bar. Evenings were when he wanted to spend time with her, not be on his own while she got chatted up by sleazy old men. She'd stink of booze. The money was crap. The job was crap. And she was already a little too fond of alcohol in his opinion, she shouldn't tempt herself any further.

"Tempt myself?" she hissed. "What is wrong with you?"

"You're better than this, Jessica. That's all I'm saying."

"Don't put this on me. Admit it, the real reason you're not happy is because I found something to do other than screw you."

He wasn't listening. At the table next to them was a couple with a baby in a pram and the baby had begun to cry. Its wailing had distracted Kilgrave; he was white-faced, furious, and he abruptly slammed his coffee down on the table, snapping at the couple.

"For Christ's sake, shut that thing up!"

The mother stood up and Jessica forgot what she was saying as the mother leaned over and pressed her hands over the baby's mouth, smothering it.

For a moment, Jessica was frozen to her seat.

Kilgrave stood up, barking an order at the entire café. "Everybody out! Go on, leave."

The mother and father began pushing the pram away even while the mother's hand stayed clamped over her baby's mouth. At the same time, every single person in the café stood up and started filing out, even the staff.

It was the first time she had truly witnessed the extent of Kilgrave's powers. It felt like an eternity, but it was only a second later that Jessica's limbs unstuck and she leapt out of her seat to rip the mother's hand away from her child.

"You fucking monster, tell them to stop!"

The mother was fighting her. The father was trying to get in on the action too as the baby started crying again. She elbowed him in the jaw and twisted the mother's arm behind her back.

Kilgrave sighed and waved a dismissive hand. "You don't have to shut the baby up, just go."

She felt the mother crumble in her arms and let go, stepping back as the parents hurried to leave with the others. At the door the mother glanced back, teary eyes meeting Jessica's, and Jessica felt her heart wrench.

"Well," said Kilgrave, "now that the riffraff is gone… Jessica."

It was as though she was looking at him over a yawning chasm. She felt sick. "What? You just – you almost murdered a _baby_."

"Oh come on, I didn't know she'd smother the thing." He tapped the back of his chair. "Sit down. We need to talk."

She didn't say anything. He wanted to _talk_ ; well, he could shove a burning torch up his ass. Jessica walked out without a word, slamming the door shut behind her.

* * *

A flurry of texts and missed calls followed. She spent the night in a motel and ignored them all. Fuck him. The way he'd been so casual over what had happened, like he'd barely noticed… Even the thought of it gave her the creeps.

The next evening, she started her new job. She'd been hired by a guy called Luke, big guy, good-looking, also happily married so no danger there.

Jessica had learned how to use the till and was getting the hang of where the different beverages were kept when Kilgrave found her. He walked in and she sensed Luke stiffen beside her when Kilgrave approached the bar.

"You want something?" Luke asked.

"Not from you," Kilgrave said. "Mind your own business." Luke's attention immediately vanished; he slung a towel over his shoulder and walked away. Kilgrave turned his gaze to her. "Jessica. You've been ignoring my calls."

"Yeah," she said. "Take the hint. I'm working, Kilgrave. How did you find me?"

She hadn't told him which bar she'd gotten a job at. He'd thrown a tantrum over it before she had the chance.

"I asked around." He leaned against the counter and she thought how out of place he looked in his fitted suit and coat, with his slicked back hair and air of wealth and superiority. He didn't belong in an establishment like this. No wonder Luke had clocked him as trouble. "Look, I don't have much experience with arguments in relationships." She snorted, but he continued unperturbed. "But I do know that the mature thing to do is communicate. Talk it over."

"The last time we 'communicated'–" she put the word in air quotes – "you told me I shouldn't take this job. And then you tried to murder a baby, so I'm done with you."

He gave her a look. "That's a lie and you know it. I didn't mean for them to hurt it."

"I've seen you be careless. But not that careless."

"God." He shook his head. "Jessica, I have to live with this every day. One wrong word and someone can get hurt. I know that all too well."

"Do you care?"

"What?"

"Do you care about a stranger getting hurt?"

She fixed him with a level stare as she asked the question, Kilgrave frowning back at her. It wasn't only that he'd lost his temper and endangered a child that bothered her. It was the complete lack of empathy or remorse. Did he care?

He didn't answer, because that was when she was shot by a tranquiliser gun.

The dart hit her in the neck, a needle-sharp burst of pain. She swayed on the spot, dazed and confused. She saw two things. One: the perp who had shot her, a man in a heavy coat and hood seated at one of the tables near the door, his face obscured by a grey scarf. Two: Kilgrave getting up, eyes wide, looking around as he opened his mouth to stop whatever was going on, but then a gloved hand clamped over his mouth and for a moment she had a vivid recollection of the baby crying and thrashing with the mother's hand smothering it.

Then she blacked out.


	4. it isn't murder

**iv. it isn't murder if you don't pull the trigger**

She woke up in a cage. An actual, real, human-sized made-of-steel cage.

Her head felt like cotton wool. Groaning, Jessica tried to sit up and found that her hands were tied behind her back. She gritted her teeth and pulled, but the plastic cable wouldn't yield. Either it was very strong or she was weak from the tranquiliser.

It had to be the latter. She could bend steel.

She got her back against the steel bars and assessed her surroundings. Wooden beams, pens, the distinct smell of manure. A barn. There was hay and everything. Christ, where had they taken her? She didn't even know who 'they' were. No one around to ask either. Not a cow in sight.

"Hey!" she yelled, though it didn't come out right the first time. Her tongue felt thick, her mouth dry. "Hey, scumbags! I'm awake!"

Footsteps from outside the barn. The creak of a door. A sliver of natural light poured in, and then a silhouette: a man in black fatigue gear, carrying a rifle. Shaved head, clean-cut. She'd guess a military background. He saw Jessica awake and pulled out his cell phone.

"Hey!" Jessica slammed her shoulder against the steel cage, which did nothing but give her a bruise. "I'm talking to you, asshole. This is kidnapping! What do you want, a ransom? She won't pay out."

That was a wild guess, but the man did look up. He'd finished texting whoever and he seemed entirely unconcerned by her yelling.

"You think we're asking for a ransom?" He shook his head. "All wrong, honey. We're selling you off to the highest bidder."

"What?"

Her blood ran cold. Jesus Christ, was she being _trafficked_?

The man didn't reply; he was checking his phone again. Jesus fuck.

Jessica licked her lips and injected a menacing tone into her voice, though it came out more weary than defiant. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. You can't sell me. I will get out."

He didn't even look up. "If you're referring to your enhanced strength, we know about that. That's why you're here."

Oh. Fuck.

"You're selling me because I have powers?" This wasn't her worst nightmare – her worst nightmare would be losing Trish – but it was definitely in her top ten. "Good luck finding a bidder for my shitty-ass powers. I'm not someone you'd want to hire."

The irony of that comment was lost on Mr Ex-Military Kidnapper. Having checked on her to his apparent satisfaction, he turned and walked away.

"Hey! Hey!" She screamed and kicked at the cage bars. Nothing. The barn door closed behind him and with a sinking feeling it occurred to Jessica that she had seen his face. He hadn't bothered with a mask.

That didn't bode well.

What followed was the longest few hours of her life. She had no idea how much time had passed. She tried to get up and failed; her limbs were too heavy. With effort, she hauled herself around to the cage door and examined the lock, but there was nothing to pick it with. Even that small effort wore her out. Eventually she gave up; she would have to bide her time and wait for the tranquiliser to wear off.

There was a chink in the barn roof where sunlight filtered through and Jessica craned her head back, watching the dust motes as they caught the light. The angle and position of the patch of sunlight changed as the sun moved through the sky, inching its way across the barn floor. Sometimes she thought she could see it moving. She'd probably imagined it.

She wondered what had happened to Kilgrave. The last thing she'd seen had been someone else grabbing him. Had he been kidnapped too? Did they know about his powers? And what about Luke and everyone else in the bar? Were they okay? Had they called the police?

Too many questions and no answers. She couldn't assume that anyone was coming. She had to take her chances by herself.

At some point the man came back in and tranquilised her again. He stuck the dart in her neck and she was too sluggish to avoid it. She passed out, woke up. The patch of sunlight had leapt across three floorboards and elongated itself, the shadows beginning to lengthen. She was stiff as a board and horribly thirsty.

Jessica closed her eyes, though the hard press of the steel bars against her back kept her from drifting off.

They were going to sell her, he'd said. What kind of buyer would bid for a woman with enhanced strength? What would they want her for? Military? Experiments? The sick fantasy of some rich guy who wanted to subjugate a powerful woman?

The doors slammed open. She blinked, looked up–

Kilgrave.

Kilgrave, silhouetted in the doorway, tall and angular; she'd recognise that figure anywhere. Relief flooded through her like a dam breaking. There he was, suited up, in control. His eyes fell on her and he barked an order at her kidnapper who had entered the barn with him:

"Let her out!"

After that was something of a slow-motion blur: her kidnapper unlocking the cage door, hauling her out, Kilgrave coming to help – he lifted her up and she fell into his arms like a sack of potatoes, but God, she was so relieved…

"I've got you, look," he said, holding her, supporting her, "you're safe now, everything's gonna be fine."

"I thought they got you too," she croaked, "I saw them go for you…"

He kissed her brow. "They nearly did. I'm so sorry, Jess. Are you okay?"

He gave her a bottle of water which she took gratefully, guzzling it down like her favourite Scotch. God, she was parched. A few feet away the man who had kidnapped her was standing stock-still as if at attention, his rifle tucked under his arm.

"They… He said he was going to sell me," she told him, finding the energy to muster up a dirty look at her kidnapper. "Ask him. Make him tell you what he's up to."

"Already did," Kilgrave said, straightening up to regard the man before them. "He's a mercenary. Says he used to work for a company called IGH. Ever heard of them?"

"No…"

Had she? Something about the name niggled at her, the barest nudge of a memory.

"They experimented on people. They experimented on you." Kilgrave turned to address the other man. "Simon, listen up. Jessica and I are going to leave this barn. You are going to wait here and then you're going to count down sixty seconds after we're gone. When you reach zero, take that rifle and blow your brains out. Jessica, let's go."

 _What?_

He started to move as if to hurry them off, but Jessica stumbled, dragging her heels. She couldn't believe what she'd heard. "Wait! What the hell? You're going to kill him?"

Kilgrave blinked. "I'm not going to kill him, he can kill himself."

"You can't!"

"He's dangerous. He kidnapped you, he tried to kidnap me and God knows how many other people like us. No one's going to miss him."

Despite her fogged brain, despite the sluggishness in her limbs, there was a logic to what he said. She got it. But she also couldn't contemplate killing someone, even a kidnapping scumbag.

"It doesn't matter who's going to miss him. Jesus, Kilgrave. That's why we have the police. He's a crook, we need to lock him up so he can't hurt anyone else."

"We can't turn him over to the police."

"Why not? That's what he deserves. A jail cell."

Her lip curled as she said it. Her kidnapper – Simon – simply stood and watched their argument, but when she gave him a second look she realised that his eyes were wet. He knew what was happening. He knew they were arguing over his fate. And he couldn't do anything about it. She guessed that Kilgrave had forbidden him to speak.

"Jessica." Kilgrave set his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him. "Listen to me. If we go to the police, they'll find out about us. They'll find out about me. I'll be put on some government record and there'll be a target on my back for the rest of my life, do you understand me? I can't risk that. I risked everything for you, I will risk everything for you, but don't ask me to risk that."

Her mouth twisted. She didn't know how to feel. The police in her neighbourhood probably knew about her already; she hadn't exactly made much effort to hide her powers. Was he seriously asking her to participate in murder? Was there no other way?

"Tell him to stop," she said. "Tell him to walk away and never do this again."

"You know that won't work. As soon as my control wears off he'll be free to come after us. We need to take care of him. Do you have a better solution?"

Jessica stared at him.

She didn't. In that moment she didn't. Maybe later when she wasn't dehydrated and exhausted from a day spent in a cage, maybe when she'd had time to process the situation and think rationally, she might have come up with something, but right now she couldn't. A lump rose in her throat.

"I've never killed anyone before."

Her voice seemed pathetically small. She'd beaten up a mugger, easy, no guilt. Stopped a crime in its tracks. But this crime had already been stopped, Simon was helpless and she couldn't think of another way out.

She looked at her kidnapper again. Hands trembling, tears in his eyes. She wished she didn't know his name. He'd told her that he was going to sell her, shown zero remorse. He'd looked at her like she was a piece of meat.

"Jessica," Kilgrave said, catching her gaze again. "This isn't murder. We're not killing him. This man is a stone-cold mercenary. He's done this before and he'll do it again if we don't stop him. If I weren't here, he'd be doing it to you. All I've done is put him on pause. We're not killing him. This is self-defence."

Self-defence… She glanced again at Simon, swallowed, looked away. Then she looked at Kilgrave, those big brown eyes of his, gazing at her with a certainty that she lacked.

Stop the bad guy, save the girl. Wasn't that what heroes were supposed to do?

Wasn't he right?

She closed her eyes and let Kilgrave lead her out of the barn.

* * *

They didn't kill Simon.

It was self-defence.

She didn't do it.

She didn't give the order.

There was no other way.

He was the bad guy.

He deserved it.

She remembered the sound of the gunshot, long, long after it happened. The crack of a life being snuffed out. She imagined the blood. The skull, smashed to pieces. The crumpled body. The lifeless eyes.

Excuses were like maggots. They infested you. They ate at you. Maggots in her mouth, eating her up from the inside out.

 _Kilgrave made me do it. It wasn't my fault._

Who would believe that?

* * *

She dry-heaved on the way back to the hotel. The journey took two hours, long enough for the tranquiliser to wear off. She stumbled inside the building, Kilgrave pausing to send their driver on his way before following after her.

He got her a glass of warm milk and then whiskey when she asked. He tucked her into bed. He told her it was okay.

She caught his arm before he could leave. "Kilgrave. I… I know today was kind of shitty. I've never been in a situation like that before. I didn't know what to do, but I guess you got me out, so…"

He smiled. "Is that a thank you?"

"Maybe." Did heroes kill people? The movies disagreed on that point. She looked down, letting her hair fall over her eyes. "I don't feel great about it."

"You had a shock," he said. "You'll feel better in the morning."

"No, I mean… I wish we could have escaped without hurting anyone."

"Me too."

"What happened?" she asked. "Was there anything you could have done?"

It was futile to ask, she knew that even as she asked it. The damage had been done and Kilgrave was unrepentant. But her conscience was stained too.

He shook his head, eyes soft. "I don't think we could. They took us by surprise – there were two of them, did you see? Simon was the one who shot you. He had an accomplice, an old friend of his called Marco. He went for me." Kilgrave rubbed at his neck and she guessed that he had also been tranquilised. "Maybe they got sloppy but I woke up earlier than expected and managed to spit out just enough of the gag to give an order. I told Marco to take me to you."

"I didn't see him," she said, frowning. "Marco."

"Yes, you did. He was our driver."

Oh.

Oh, she was stupid. There had been a car waiting for them outside the barn. She'd been so out of it, she hadn't stopped to wonder about the driver. But Kilgrave had.

"You made him drive us back to the hotel," she said, realising.

He nodded. "And right about now, he'll be driving himself off a bridge and straight into the river."

Oh. Oh, shit.

That was it; that was her reaction. A running commentary in her head. Shit. She folded her hands over the covers. Her skin was thick and numb.

Two men were dead.

Two kidnappers. Two criminals.

"But," Kilgrave continued, "I retrieved this before I let them go." He bent down to open a briefcase that he'd taken from the car. Inside was an envelope stuffed with papers. He handed them over. "Marco had these. Records from IGH. If you want to, you can have a look at them and we can talk about it. Whenever you're ready."

"Oh," she said dumbly.

The papers were on her lap. She stared down and the initials IGH leapt out, but the rest was a blur. The lamplight didn't help, but it was more than that. She was utterly drained.

Kilgrave read her expression and put the papers back in the envelope. "Maybe tomorrow."

He kissed her good night. She didn't remember when she fell asleep. And, thank God, she didn't remember her dreams.

* * *

She read the files the next day after a dose of caffeine. They were medical records, expenses. All relating to a car accident that had happened thirteen years ago, and all relating to Jessica and her family. Alisa and Brian Jones, her mother and father, had been pronounced dead at the scene. Her brother Phillip too. But Jessica had survived. IGH was the company that had paid her medical expenses.

It was like reading an epitaph. She sat huddled on the bed in the hotel room, poring over the papers, brushing her fingers over the letters that spelled her parents' names.

She felt a little better. Still shaken, but alive. They'd done what they had to do. These papers were proof that the two dead men were connected to the organisation that had experimented on her… And if that was the case, well. They were the bad guys. She didn't care if they were dead.

Kilgrave left her to her own devices for a while. He came back in the afternoon with coffee and cake, and she tucked her hair behind her ears, looking up at him.

"Kilgrave… Did they tell you anything about IGH? About me?"

Kilgrave settled down in an armchair, clearing his throat. "Marco was the brains of the operation. He used to be a security contractor for IGH. They conducted medical experiments, tests… When he left the company he stole some of their files, including those records on you, teamed up with Simon and started his own little enterprise sourcing people with abilities for profit."

"Did he have a file on you too?"

Kilgrave shook his head. "He'd been watching you for some time, and you and I have been spending a lot of time together recently. Must have thought it was his lucky day."

"IGH… What does it stand for?"

"I don't know. I tried looking them up but I couldn't find anything."

"Well, where are they based? Who else works for them?"

"I don't know." He held up his hands as Jessica glared at him. "I'm sorry. Finding out about IGH wasn't my priority yesterday. My priority was rescuing you. I thought these papers might answer your questions."

And they'd killed the men who might have been able to give them more answers. She almost retorted, but bit her lip, looking away. It was too late. She exhaled, shuffling the papers back into a pile.

Kilgrave was watching her curiously. He leaned forward. "Do you want to find out more?"

"I don't know. It's an old wound. I don't know what I'd gain by reopening it."

She shrugged and he gave a sympathetic nod. "That's okay. It's your history. Your choice."

There was a short pause. She finished reordering the papers and shoved them back into the envelope before looking up again at Kilgrave. "Thank you. You know, for rescuing me."

He smiled. "You're welcome. After all, we did promise."

* * *

It was unspoken that they should stay together. It just happened. She had to make up a story to Luke about why she'd been kidnapped on her first shift at work and frankly it was a miracle that he didn't fire her. She promised that there wouldn't be any police coming to question him and that seemed to be enough. He suggested that she take a few days off to settle down. Maybe he was being kind. Maybe he was hoping that she wouldn't come back.

Silver lining: she didn't have to lie to Trish, because Trish didn't know she'd gone missing. They hadn't spoken at all since Jessica had walked out.

Kilgrave was the only one she could talk to, and far from feeling despondent about the whole thing, he wanted to celebrate. He promised her a sorely needed distraction.

"I just have one condition," he said. "You have to go with it. Do as I say."

"Oh, so you want me to pretend to be one of your mind-controlled minions now?" she joked.

"Come on. Say yes. I promise you'll enjoy it."

She exhaled. "Fine. Okay."

He was delighted.

* * *

Funny how easy it was to take a life and carry on like nothing had happened.

He took her shopping first, where he bought her lingerie: lacy underwear and a matching dark purple chemise. Then a beauty salon, where she had her hair and make-up done. Her toes and fingernails were painted. Then a satin gown, personally fitted just for her. Silver heels. Diamond earrings.

She dressed up for him and he took her to an Italian restaurant for dinner. A booth in the corner. Candlelight.

No one here had any idea of what they had been through. None of them had heard that gunshot. Kilgrave was smiling.

Was this her life now? Emotional whiplash?

"We're a little late to the party thanks to the kidnapping," Kilgrave said, "but I believe in commemorating milestones. Tonight we're celebrating our one-month anniversary."

She snorted. "An anniversary after a month? That's not a thing."

"Hey, don't knock it. You promised you'd go with it, remember. I want tonight to be extra-special."

Her lips were red. Kilgrave kept looking at them. "Do you enjoy this?" she asked. "Dressing me up?"

"Don't you?"

He was dressed up himself, though in his case it was far less of a change. She pointed a fork at his silk waistcoat and dodged the question. "So what it is with you and purple?"

"It's my favourite colour. You look good in it too, by the way."

She looked down, toying with the pasta on her plate. "Have you killed anyone before?"

There was a pause before Kilgrave blinked and shook his head. "You really have a knack for changing the subject. No, I haven't."

"So the other night… that was the first time."

She'd thrown up over it. He'd been entirely cool and calm.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I – you know what I mean!" Christ, he was infuriating. "Even if it was self-defence, we still… they're still dead."

Two men dead. One she'd had nothing to do with, not really. She had no reason to care, and yet…

His eyes were searching. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."

"I don't. I don't know."

He exhaled. "Look, the important thing is that you're safe. That's all that matters. I want us to celebrate that." He held up his glass, inviting her to toast. "To our great escape."

She clinked his glass, a little reluctantly. "To our escape."

* * *

"Do you see what was happening?" she asked. "Do you see how I was becoming more like him? How long did it take me to convince myself that we'd done the right thing? That it wasn't murder? I don't remember. A few days. A week. Slower than him, but I got there in the end."

Trish shook her head. "You're still talking about it now. That means you haven't convinced yourself. Those doubts are still plaguing you – and that's okay. It was a complicated situation."

Complicated. Yeah. At least at that point she still had some sense of dignity. She'd had a choice and she'd made it, even if it was a bad one.

She'd had a choice.

* * *

Another night, another five star hotel.

 _I'm alive_ , she told herself. _I'm alive and those fuckers are dead and they deserve to be dead._

She pinned Kilgrave's hands to the bed and fucked him as if that would drive away the bodies in her brain.

"God," he groaned, collapsing after he'd finished way too fast, "I love it when you're aggressive."

She rolled over, sweaty and unsatisfied. "Clearly your dick does too."

"You're welcome."

He was satisfied. Obviously.

"I'm not done," she said.

"Yes, you are."

Her brow creased. The syllables slipped from his mouth with no thought, as if by saying them he made it true. If he'd said it to anyone else, then it would have been true. His words became reality.

"I'm not," she said. "Why don't you go down on me for a change?"

"Happy to give you anything you want. If you ask nicely."

She gave him a look, but he was equal to it, grinning even though he was short of breath. Their eyes were locked. Stalemate.

"Please," she said flatly.

He loved that.

* * *

She put the IGH papers back in the envelope and tucked them away in her suitcase for safekeeping. Her decision, in the end, was not to pursue it.

It would be six months before she learned the truth.


	5. gotta pay rent somehow, right

**v. gotta pay rent somehow, right**

Living in a hotel sounded great, especially when she didn't have to pay for it. There was a pool and a sauna. A mini-bar in their room. A Michelin star restaurant. Twenty four hour room service. She couldn't ask for more.

Within a week she was searching for apartments to rent.

Maybe she was the kind of person who never fitted in anywhere, maybe that was it. Her childhood home was the place she'd felt most like she belonged. It was family. It was home. The only home she'd known before the car crash happened.

After that… Nothing. Nowhere. She was an adopted kid grieving the death of her entire family and suddenly finding out that she had super powers to boot. The Walkers' house could never feel like home to her.

She'd stayed in college accommodation, with friends, with boyfriends, with Trish – but none of it was home. It wasn't hers. She didn't belong.

The hotel was the same. People passed through, they moved on. She owned nothing. She was living out of a suitcase.

"I appreciate the room," she said to Kilgrave over breakfast, "but I need something more permanent. Feels like I'm on a weird extended vacation."

He tilted his head at her. "Is that a bad thing?"

She shook her head. "What about you? Where do you call home?"

"Right now, here."

Huh. She hadn't thought about it before, but Kilgrave had never invited her back to his place. They'd always stayed at hotels or in Trish's apartment. She might have suspected that he was hiding a wife and kids from her, but he didn't seem the type. Sipping orange juice, eating fruit and croissants, he looked at ease here in a way that she wasn't.

"You don't have a permanent address," she said.

"I don't."

She frowned, breaking her croissant into pieces. Thinking through the implications. No permanent address. No bank account? He'd only ever paid for things in cash, if he bothered to pay. He had a cell phone, a laptop, a wallet and an entire wardrobe of suits, but nothing else. Strange for a man who could get anything he wanted. Or maybe not: he didn't need possessions. He could take whatever he liked.

Kilgrave was looking at her, studying her face. "You find that strange," he observed.

"I was just thinking. Do you officially exist?"

"Oh," he said. "There you go again. Existential question. I suppose technically I don't. Does that bother you?"

"No, it's just…" She blew out her cheeks. God, she was supposed to have cracked this being an adult business by now. What would her teenage self say about this conversation? "I told you I've been trying to figure my life out. You know, do something with it. Decide whether you should be part of it."

"Ah," he said. "Well, now I'm interested. I hope you want me to be part of it. I know I want to be part of yours. You want to figure your life out, let me help. Tell me more about yourself. Your friends, your family. I've met Trish. Who else is there?"

It was an innocent question, but a cruel one. The people at the front of her mind were dead (Mom, Dad, Phillip) and she had to stop and think about who was left alive to talk to.

She counted them out on her fingers. "My friends from college got married and most of them are popping out kids. Seems like when that happens people fall out of touch. I'd go out for a drink with my co-workers from my last job but then I quit. No one called. I guess for the last few months it's just been me and Trish."

He pulled a sympathetic face. "That's rough."

And she'd fallen out with Trish. Again.

She shrugged. "Well, I'm not really a people person anyway."

"We have that in common."

"Do we? You always seem like the life of the party."

"Well, that's because people are nice to me."

"You mean you make them be nice to you."

He shrugged. "Same difference."

Same difference. But other than Trish, she had only ever seen him interact with strangers. Every time they talked he steered the conversation back to her. She knew almost nothing about his background. His history. The people in his life. The people he cared about.

"That's what I don't understand." She shook her head, abandoning her croissant which was in bits. "What was your life like before you met me? Did you mind control everyone you ever met?"

"Not everyone," he said. "It depends on what I needed from them. I came to this country on my own. I didn't have anyone. I had to use my power to navigate the city and find a place to live."

"What about your friends?"

"Which friends are those?"

"You said you were meeting friends for dinner that first night we met."

He frowned as if he'd forgotten. "Oh – right. I moved on."

"Moved on?"

"To you."

It was her turn to frown. "You mean like how you move from hotel to hotel?"

"I don't follow."

"I mean, do you treat the people you know the same way you treat everyone else? You take whatever you want, then you move on. How can you have a connection with another person when they have to do everything you say? Is it even possible for you to have friends?"

"I don't think you're one to talk about friends," he retorted. Her face hardened and he retreated swiftly, lifting a hand. "Look, I'll make a confession. You're right. I make friends, I don't keep them. I don't keep anything. Until you. You're different."

"Am I?"

"You are. Believe me, you are. You know why."

Yes, she knew why. Jessica nodded, looking away. He was a callous asshole with no moral code to speak of, but he'd looked out for her. He'd saved her life. Like her, he was drifting through life with no real connections, and maybe she was the only person in the world who could provide him with that.

If there was anyone who could rein him in, it was her. She could manage his worst tendencies. They could make this work. She needed to make this work.

"I need a place to stay," she said. "My own place. Can you help?"

* * *

He found her an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. A little rough around the edges, unfurnished, but right for her. Her name was on the deed and he assured her that everything was legal and above board, no mind control involved. Kilgrave paid three months' rent in advance and was listed as her guarantor under a false name. (Or maybe it was his real name. She wouldn't know.)

She didn't ask him where he got the money from.

Without asking, without even talking about it really, she ended up living with him. Kilgrave moved from sleeping next to her in the hotel room to sleeping next to her in her new apartment and she couldn't think of a reason to protest. After all, she wouldn't have the place if not for him.

At first it was an improvement. He hired a cleaner so they could leave shit lying around and not worry about it. All their needs were taken care of. They spent the first few days refurbishing the apartment and she liked buying shit for herself, making the place her own. She and Kilgrave even went to Ikea – _Ikea_ – and bought furniture together like a married couple. They bickered over bathroom tiles. She had to forcibly squash his idea to paint the bedroom purple.

"It's my apartment. No purple."

"Okay. But – forgive me, Jessica – you don't exactly have the best taste."

According to him, she didn't have good taste in anything. Food, clothes, furniture, décor, art, culture, literature, TV shows…

It became wearying.

"Don't hog the remote!" she snapped when he was hogging the remote. He'd switched over to some awful romcom – _Music and Lyrics_ – and she wondered how she'd had the misfortune to end up with a partner who enjoyed romantic comedies more than she did. It was like when Trish made her watch _Love Actually_ every Christmas, but worse.

Judging by _his_ taste in media, she could only conclude that he modelled himself after a mixture of Hugh Grant, James Bond and some shitty British sci-fi show about a man who kidnapped hot young women and travelled around space or something.

"Wow, I would have kicked his ass for that," she said when Hugh Grant told his pretty young ingénue that she was shallow and selfish.

"They'll get together in the end," said Kilgrave complacently.

Obviously, they did.

* * *

Outside the apartment she faced a whole new set of problems, and those problems were called _other people_.

Jessica was not overflowing with love for humanity. Never had been. People were assholes. But even the biggest of them didn't deserve an encounter with Kilgrave.

He was funny about her job at the bar. One night she was collecting empty glasses from the tables and he just turned up.

She got to him before he could order anything.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, that's no way to say hello." He looked smug. The punchable kind of smug. "Thought I'd drop in, see how you were getting on. God, this place is even dingier than I remember."

If she hadn't been holding a tray of beer glasses, she might have shoved him right back out of the door. The look she gave him wasn't enough. Telekinesis would be such a useful ability, she thought. Don't even have to touch the assholes to get rid of them.

"I'm fine," she said shortly. "You can leave."

"Oh, come on, let me buy a drink at least." He looked around. "God knows you could do with a paying customer."

"You're not a paying customer."

"I can be."

Unfortunately, at that point her boss Luke chose to come over. He'd noticed Kilgrave come in, must have seen that she wasn't happy. That was one thing about Luke: he looked out for his staff. He never let the drunks or the scumbags hassle her more than they should.

Luke stared Kilgrave down. "You again. Is there a problem?"

Anyone else would have been intimidated. She'd seen what happened when Luke threw someone out. He was calm but firm, and there was something about the solidity of his presence that made those other guys think twice before messing with him.

Not Kilgrave. Luke could have been eight feet tall with the ability to crush a man's skull between his hands and it wouldn't have made a difference.

"Get me a drink," Kilgrave said. "Whiskey, neat. Now."

And off Luke went. Jessica rolled her eyes and went back around behind the bar to dispose of her tray. She served another customer while Luke was busy with Kilgrave. He said something that she didn't catch and Luke disappeared into the back without another word.

"You know, if you keep doing that he's going to start asking questions."

"Big lug like that? I doubt it."

"He's not stupid." She looked at him nursing his whiskey glass. He hadn't touched it. "You don't even drink whiskey."

Kilgrave's alcoholic beverage of choice was wine, occasionally sherry or port. He was basically a middle-aged housewife.

"I know. It's for you."

He smiled and pushed the glass over to her. Cocky bastard. Her lips thinned. What was he up to anyway?

Whatever it was, she probably needed a drink for it. Jessica knocked back the whiskey in one, and the other customer she'd served next to Kilgrave whistled approvingly.

"Hey, Jessie," he said. "How come you don't let me buy you a drink like that?"

"I told you, not when I'm on the clock," said Jessica, but it was too late, Kilgrave's head had already snapped around.

"Is that him?" Kilgrave asked, and suddenly everything clicked in her head.

It was a story she'd told Kilgrave after her last shift about one of her regular customers being an asshole and coming on to her. His name was Mitch and she'd known he was interested right from the start; men were rarely subtle. He hung around her like a dog waiting for a bone and he looked a bit like one too, with long hair and droopy eyes and a scratchy beard.

She hadn't thought much of it at the time. It was something she'd bitched about, like any gripe about work, and then forgotten. Clearly it had stuck with Kilgrave.

"It is, isn't it?" said Kilgrave, now staring at Mitch. "Jessica told me about your antics the other night."

Mitch was slow to catch on. "What…?"

"She's mine." Kilgrave's eyes bored into the other man's. "Don't even think of trying anything ever again. Jessica Jones is off-limits, do you understand me?"

"I understand you."

"Good. Now get out and go boil your head."

Her jaw dropped. Mitch was already getting up. She grabbed at Kilgrave's sleeve and hissed at him: "Stop! Make him stop!"

Kilgrave rolled his eyes. "Wait there," he said to Mitch, and then he gave Jessica a pointed look. "Relax, he won't succeed. It's very hard to boil your head."

She didn't ask him how he knew that.

Grinding her teeth, Jessica stomped out from behind the bar and pulled Kilgrave aside.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm defending your honour," he said, and he sounded proud about it too.

"You're being a prick. Stop it. Go home."

"Come with me," he said. "I miss you."

Oh, Christ. Not this again. He'd pissed her off with his whining about it every single time she left him to go to work, but this was the first time he'd actually followed her here.

"It's been a few hours. You can beat off to porn for one night. Bye."

She pointed him to the door, then turned around and walked off. He called after her; she didn't break her stride. She went to the bathroom and was not at all surprised when Kilgrave followed her in. At least that got him out of the way of Mitch, and Luke if he came back anytime soon.

Jessica leaned against the wash basin and folded her arms, fixing him with a flat stare.

"I want you," he said. "No one else. Only you."

"I'm _working_ ," she said, trying and failing to control her rising temper.

"Sure." He advanced towards her, reached out to clasp her arms. "Then let's do it, right here, right now."

"Are you insane?"

"Come on. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I said no."

"Jessica." He gave her a look. "I'm not leaving until I get what I want."

"Which is what, getting me fired?"

"No one will know."

What, because he'd compelled everyone in the bar not to come in? Her eyes flicked to the door and she hesitated. Never mind her temper. If she made him leave he might lose his temper and she couldn't have him cause a scene at work.

She took a breath, controlling herself. "Will you let him go?"

"Let who go?"

Again, she ground her teeth. "Mitch. The man you told to go boil his head."

"I can if you want."

If she gave him what he wanted. She was pretty sure that was the unspoken clause. This was what she'd signed up for, she reminded herself. She'd chosen to go all in with Kilgrave, knowing what he was like. He got the attention he wanted, she got the benefits of his company and she could mitigate the damage to others.

He only thought with his dick anyway. Easy enough.

"In here," she said, and dragged him into the stall, locking the door behind them.

"Urgh," he said, probably because the bathroom stall wasn't up to his rich prick standards, but she unbuckled his belt and his protests vanished. They fumbled with zips and buttons, then he turned her around and pressed her up against the wall.

"Make it quick," she sniped at him. "Shouldn't be hard."

His breath tickled her ear. "Just for that I'm gonna drag it out."

Afterwards, she told him in no uncertain terms that he was never to come to her workplace again. He let Mitch go and Luke was none the wiser.

They'd gotten away with it. No harm done.

* * *

She thought she had it under control. But influence worked both ways. For every petty grievance or act of spite she prevented Kilgrave from committing he wanted something in return, and his demands were endless.

 _"Come here, Jessica."_

 _"Let's stay in tonight, Jessica."_

 _"Try this, Jessica."_

 _"Smile, Jessica."_

 _"Beg me for it."_

It was getting harder to say no.

* * *

At first, the bar work was a respite. She hung on to her job, despite the terrible start, despite Kilgrave's active resentment, despite her own doubts. Luke was a good boss, friendly if a little guarded, and undemanding. He only asked that she turn up and do the work required.

But there was a gnawing pit in her stomach. Every night it grew. She found a minute away from Kilgrave to collect her bills and add up the numbers. Income versus expenditure. Sharp red numbers that punctured a hole in her new life: she could pay the bills but she couldn't pay rent. Once the three months were up, she would have to ask Kilgrave for help again because she couldn't make it on her own. Part-time bar work wasn't enough.

When was the last time she had talked to anyone who wasn't Kilgrave, a co-worker or a customer?

When was the last time she had talked to Trish?

The bar was quiet that night, no Kilgrave. It was early, just a couple of regulars nursing their drinks. Not Mitch. He'd never come back. She turned her back to the counter and stared at her phone screen. At Trish's number. Last call, nearly two months ago. Last text, six weeks ago.

She scrolled down the contacts list. Married. Moved away. Having a baby. Haven't talked to in over a year. Ex-work colleague. Another ex-work colleague.

"You all right, Jones?"

That was Luke, coming to check on her.

She realised that her eyes were wet and quickly wiped them. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"We got a customer to serve." He pointed.

"Yeah, I'll be right there."

Luke's eyes were on her while she served the customer his beer. She rang up the till and turned her back on him but he came over anyway.

"Jessica, are you in trouble?"

"What? No."

He'd asked the same thing when she returned after that first night at work. She'd fed him a bunch of bullshit about a Patsy Walker stalker who had kidnapped her in an attempt to ransom her off for a date with Trish. It didn't even seem that implausible. The perks of having a celebrity sister.

Luke's eyes were fixed on her. Maybe he didn't buy it. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." She looked back at him, taking a breath. "I need to ask you something. I want more shifts. Can you bump me up to five nights a week?"

* * *

"Absolutely not," Kilgrave said. "I can't believe you did that without asking me."

It was a foggy night. A storm brewing. And their first real all-out shouting match. She stood in the middle of the bedroom with her fists clenched, and all the rage, all the resentment poured out of her. The clouds burst.

"It's my life, you piece of shit! You don't get a say! You and your pathetic fucking resentment over this stupid job–"

"You don't need this job!" His face was dark with anger; he practically spat at her. "You have me! I have given you _everything_ , and you never appreciate it! Not one thank you, not even one–"

"Fuck off! I've done everything you want–"

"Bullshit–"

"Everything! I'm wearing clothes that you picked out for me, I'm wearing goddamn purple underwear because it turns you on. All I want is to do one thing that doesn't perfectly fit into your schedule, _one thing_ that isn't about you and you can't take it."

"Oh, please. You know that job is pointless, you're only doing it to get at me."

She scoffed. "What?"

"You know it has no value," he said, advancing on her, "it's a waste of your time, it's a waste of my time. Sit down. You're not going."

He grabbed her wrist and she shook him off, incensed.

"Get off me!"

"Sit down, Jessica."

"No–"

" _Now_ , Jessica."

He tried it again, grabbing her wrist, and she couldn't say what it was that set her off. The physical contact. The way he bore down on her, the twisted anger in his face. The command, callous and petulant. Or the way he said her name, grinding out the syllables, as if he owned her like he owned everyone else.

She didn't know his real name.

There was a myth in folklore that names held power. Faeries hid their true names to stop humans from controlling them. Kilgrave had her name between his teeth. She hated him for it and she hated his stupid fake name and she hated how it reminded her of every time he used someone's name to command them, to pick out an individual in a crowd.

She hit him.

It was a hard, stinging blow, a left hook to his jaw, and it struck him down to the floor where he hit the foot of the bed with a cry.

She hardly knew that she'd done it. Time stood still. Her hand was curled into a fist, hovering in the air. Her heart thundered in her chest. She stared at him. He looked up at her, and he was bleeding, eyes watering. Oh, God. She hadn't meant to hit him that hard. She hadn't meant to hit him at all.

"You hurt me," he said, bewildered, injured.

She swallowed. "Oh my God. I'm sorry–"

She moved forward to help him and he flinched, holding up his hands to ward her off. "Get away from me!"

"You're hurt, let me help you."

A red streak covered half of his face. She could have knocked him out. She could have killed him.

His voice shook. "Get out."

"Kilgrave–"

He screamed at her. "Get out!"

Outside, the rain fell in sheets. The clouds rumbled.

She fled.

* * *

She spent the night in a cheap motel and it was her turn to send the apology texts. She received no answer that night.

She also failed to turn up for work.

The apology text for Luke had to be sent in the morning after she woke up in a panic with the realisation that she'd failed to turn up for work the day after her boss had agreed to give her more shifts.

And she'd hit her partner.

She was such a piece of shit.

* * *

She was forced to knock on her own door, hanging her head. "Kilgrave, please! Let me in!"

Eventually, he opened it. He had stitches on the side of his face where she had hit him. They stared at each other for a moment and then Kilgrave let her in silently.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him from the couch. "I… I lost control."

"I noticed," he said.

"I'm sorry." She couldn't think of what else to say and shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, you were being a dick, you pissed me off–"

"Oh, so it's my fault, is it?"

"No…"

"I had to go to the hospital to get these," he said, pointing at the stitches. "I should have gone to the police."

"I don't know, what do you want me to say?" She felt awful enough already. He was making her feel worse. "How do I make it right?"

He moved to sit down away from her, the seconds ticking by in agonising fashion. He touched his bruised cheek, letting his fingers linger there, reminding her of what she had done. Then he shook his head.

"I don't know."

"It won't happen again. I promise."

He looked at her. "I hope so."

She could feel his disappointment like a cloud hanging over them. Like rain. She could drown in it.

* * *

It took him three days to forgive her. Three days with that gnawing pit in her stomach eating away at her. Three days carrying around dread and guilt like a stone around her neck. He cold-shouldered her for most of that time and only finally relented when she offered to help take his stitches out. They hadn't discussed the bar job; she didn't dare bring it up. She called in sick and stayed with Kilgrave. He didn't bring it up either.

Finally, on the third night when he was watching a movie and she was listening to music, he said something. "Jessica, come here."

She took off her earbuds, not quite catching him. "What?"

He gestured. "Come here. Sit with me."

She did as he said, the nervous ball in her stomach making itself known again.

"I think we should talk," he said. "Jessica… It wasn't what you did that upset me, as bad as that was. What you said hurt me too."

Another stab of guilt. Her mouth was dry. "What did I say?"

"I don't think you understood why I don't want you to take those extra shifts. I want to spend time with you, Jessica, I want you to stay with me. Every second we have together is more precious than you can know, and you being at that bar takes that away from us. That's what I don't understand. I thought you liked being with me. Then suddenly out of the blue you say you want to take extra hours… Like you don't want me here at all."

He sounded hurt. She'd never thought about it from his perspective before. Never thought that she was hurting his feelings.

"I want you here," she said. "Of course I want you here. Getting a job isn't about you, it's about paying rent."

"But you don't need to pay rent."

She bit her lip. They were about to get into the same argument again and the first time had been bad enough. "Forget it. I'm sorry, okay?"

"Are you?" His tone was noticeably cooler. "I don't think you are. I see no evidence of it."

She stared at him. "You want me to prove that I'm sorry? I called in sick to stay here and take care of you!"

"Because you feel guilty for hitting me. That's not the same thing."

She opened and closed her mouth. He had her there. She sensed that he had something in mind; there was an intent in his eyes as he looked at her. There was a reason he'd decided to speak now. A reason he wanted to talk.

"Okay," she said. "Since you're so big on mind control. Tell me. What do you want me to do?"

She thought she caught a flicker of a smile from him, but it was gone too quickly to be sure. The intent in his eyes was still there. He leaned forward and put a hand on her thigh; she felt the press of his fingers through her jeans.

"I want you to quit," he said. "Quit your job and stay with me. Let me take care of you."

She stared at him. Her stomach dropped.

Part of her knew that doing this would cut off a lifeline, her last shred of independence. Another part thought it would be easier. She could let Kilgrave dictate her life choices for her. No need to figure shit out, no need to take responsibility. Not like she'd managed to make anything of herself anyway. She could forget all her problems like she had done in those first couple of weeks and she'd be happier for it.

Why keep trying? Who was she trying to impress? She'd wanted this all along, she just hadn't admitted it to herself.

Jessica swallowed. "If I do this, will you forgive me?"

"Of course," he said. "Of course I'll forgive you."

* * *

She wasn't just selfish. She was a coward as well.


	6. can't punch depression

**vi. can't punch depression**

Jessica hated Thanksgiving. She thought Kilgrave wouldn't care for it since he was a) British and b) he didn't have a fucking family. But no.

"It's like celebrating Christmas a month early!" he said with an enthusiasm that inspired dread for when December came along. "Turkey, presents and booze, what more could you ask for?"

"I can think of a few things," she deadpanned.

"Well, do tell. How do you want to celebrate? Just the two of us, or with a family?"

"With a family?" she repeated. What did he mean?

"We could invite ourselves along to a family dinner. Have an authentic Thanksgiving experience. I did that last year, it was bags of fun."

She couldn't think of anything worse. Gate-crashing a family dinner? She'd ruin their Thanksgiving and remind herself that her family was dead to boot.

"No," she said.

He nodded. "Good. I'd rather it was just the two of us anyway."

Inadvertently, she'd given the right answer. Sometimes he gave her these bullshit choices. They were always things he wanted to do anyway and if he was less keen on one, he'd let her know.

But they went to a restaurant, again, and she dressed up with smoky eyes and red lips, again. She'd rather make it a date than play happy families.

Kilgrave perused the wine menu. "So, Jessica. What are you thankful for this year?"

"I don't know, having a drink? This looks decent."

One plus of dating Kilgrave. They always went to good restaurants. Although sometimes she missed a late night hotdog. Kebab. Burger. None of that on this menu.

"No, come on. It's been a big year for both of us." He shook his head when she didn't respond. "I'll go first then. I'm thankful for meeting you. It was an insane, scary moment when I saw you out there on the street. I had no idea what I'd let myself in for. But if I hadn't, I would never have known how magnificent you are."

She smiled, a little.

"There," he said. "Knew you had it in you. You look beautiful when you smile, Jessica, you should try it more often."

It was well-meant, but she couldn't quite find the humour in it. Her smile froze and she fixed her eyes on the menu, holding herself still.

"Jessica?" He didn't understand. "What's the matter?"

She licked her lips. The real answer was the reason she struggled with the holiday season in general. Some years were better than others. Some years she celebrated with friends or a boyfriend, got into the spirit of it. There was a vague sadness when she saw a family out Christmas shopping or the feel-good commercials on the TV, but that kind of sadness was easy to ignore. It didn't puncture the holiday cheer.

The less good years were… horrible. The years spent with Dorothy Walker, her adoptive mother, had been the worst. The fake cheer of it all. Trish in her red-haired Patsy wig. Smile for the cameras.

Smile.

She looked at Kilgrave. He wasn't to know. She wasn't sure she was ready to get into it either.

"I never liked Thanksgiving," she said finally. "The booze is okay. But not the rest of it. Who am I supposed to be thanking? God? Our forebears?"

He shook his head. "You're overthinking again. It's a simple question. Name one good thing that has happened to you this year."

She thought about it. "Getting my own place. Sort of."

"You're welcome. Do you–"

He stopped, turning his head as the waitress came over to take their order. Jessica frowned; Kilgrave didn't normally do that. He wouldn't interrupt his conversation for someone else; he'd make them wait. Then she realised why. The waitress approaching their table had spotted Kilgrave and blanched, dropping her notepad. She stared at them as if she'd seen a ghost.

No, not a ghost. A ghoul. Something monstrous.

Jessica stared back. "What?"

The waitress opened her mouth, struggled to get a word out. She was young and pretty with big dark eyes and brown hair tied back into a ponytail, but she'd gone utterly white. Kilgrave interrupted.

"Wait. Tell me the truth. Do I know you?"

A mute nod.

"The art gallery, right?"

Another nod. "Last spring."

"I remember! Do you still paint?"

A shake of the head. "No."

Behind the monosyllabic answers, the waitress was trembling. She hadn't picked up her notepad. Jessica's skin prickled; she could practically feel the terror coming off this woman.

"Pity," Kilgrave said. "You were good. Off you go now. Tell someone else to serve us and never bother us again."

And just like that, the woman obeyed, walking off and leaving her notepad behind. Jessica stared after her, then at Kilgrave.

"What the hell was that?"

He sighed, folding his arms. "She's an ex. A professional artist, or she was."

"What happened to her?"

"No idea. Judging by that encounter, she failed and became a waitress instead."

"No, I mean between you." She paused as something occurred to her. "You didn't want me to talk to her."

He'd stopped the waitress from doing anything other than answering his questions and then he'd sent her off immediately. Why?

"My girlfriend talking to my ex? Every man's nightmare."

He wouldn't say anything more and then another waiter came over to take their order anyway, but the encounter left her with a pit in her stomach. She looked around for the waitress, even excused herself to go to the bathroom to see if she could find her in another part of the restaurant, but the waitress had gone. Abandoned her shift: she'd get into trouble for that.

She returned and they continued their dinner but she couldn't stop thinking about it. Why had the waitress gone so white? Why was she so scared?

They were nearly done with their turkey when Jessica took a deep breath and decided to broach the one subject she'd never wanted to touch.

"Maybe it's time we did the awkward exes conversation."

He made a face of mock disgust. "Oh, that. Well, I suppose it is about time. I'm up for it if you are."

She nodded. "So what's the deal with the waitress?"

"She's… Christ, I've forgotten her name. Miranda or Sandy or something. We were together for a couple of months."

"Not long. You must have made an impression."

"I always do. She painted portraits, mostly. She had talent but she didn't produce a lot of work, couldn't break into the professional circles. I inspired her to paint and I helped her to get an exhibition at a local gallery, kick-start her career."

She needed a second to absorb that information. "Wow."

"It was fun while it lasted."

"So how did it end?"

She watched him carefully for this part. The waitress had been spooked. Not upset, not angry, not jealous. Scared.

Kilgrave sipped his wine, his tone nonchalant. "It stopped being fun. She was… moody. She had an artist's temperament, brilliant but not happy. I decided to move on."

"Was she upset that you broke up with her?"

He shrugged. "Probably. As you can see, she wasn't able to succeed without me."

"She looked like she was about to shit her pants," Jessica said bluntly. "Why would she be so scared?"

For the first time that night, he looked irritated. He put his knife and fork down and crossed his arms. "How would I know? We were together over a year ago, this is the first time I've seen her since we broke up."

"She was scared of you." Jessica wouldn't let it go. "She was looking at you. Did you do something to her?"

"Other than break up with her? No. Like I said, she was moody. Difficult."

"She wouldn't be difficult if you mind controlled her."

He raised his eyebrows. "You'd be surprised."

She wasn't getting anything out of him. He wasn't admitting anything, if there was anything to admit. Was there? Was she being paranoid?

"You really have no idea why she'd be scared of you? You control minds, Kilgrave, you make people into puppets. You don't think that would scare someone?"

He raised his hands. "Hey, hey, let's not have all this discriminatory talk about mind control. You didn't object when I used it to do nice things for you, did you?" He shrugged. "Maybe you're right, maybe that's why she was scared. People are afraid of what they don't understand. That's her problem. It wasn't anything serious. I tried to do something nice for her and it didn't work out. That's all."

He was firm about it. Nothing to see here.

Her stomach had settled a little. Maybe she was being paranoid. Jessica moved around the remaining food on her plate, then looked up at him again. "Okay. That one didn't work out. Any others?"

"A few."

"Anything serious?"

He shook his head. "No. I've been dating you for longer than anyone I can remember."

"Wow. Your track record is even more tragic than mine."

She wasn't surprised. Kilgrave rarely talked about longer than a week in the future, never mind about his past. The closest he'd come to a long-term commitment was paying her rent for three months. Other than that, he lived in the present more than anyone she had ever met.

Sometimes she envied him for that. He was so unashamedly hedonistic.

Kilgrave cocked his head at her. "Tragic how?"

She took a breath. Her turn. "My first serious boyfriend was murdered outside a bar. He was involved in a gang."

"Oh. That is tragic."

"Yeah. After that it took me a few years to even contemplate another relationship. One night stands were more my thing. I started dating again and one guy double-timed me with Trish." Kilgrave raised his eyebrows and she gave a bitter smile. "Yeah, that was a riot. Another only made a move on me because he wanted to go after Trish. I started telling Trish not to set me up with guys, she's like a magnet for the worst of them. Since then I've had a few random hook-ups, but nothing serious."

She stopped, frowning. When she said it out loud like that it didn't even sound tragic. It sounded pathetic. Her dating life had been virtually non-existent. It felt awful to think of it like this, but she felt like the death of her first boyfriend had set the tone. She was bad luck. She ruined everything she touched. No wonder no one had ever wanted a future with her. They wouldn't get one.

Maybe Kilgrave was different. He wasn't judging her and she was grateful for that. A couple of guys had been funny over the fact that she'd had more partners than they had. She guessed he didn't have that problem.

Instead, he regarded her with a contemplative look. "Are you looking for something serious?"

"Are you?"

"Well," he said, "my past relationships have been short-term but lately I've been rethinking that."

She tried not to smile. "I bet you've said that before."

"Never." He looked at her directly. "No, really, never. I meant it when I said that I was thankful for meeting you. I think you're the best thing to ever happen to me. I… I don't know how this is gonna sound but it's the only way I can explain it. It's like you're the first real person I've ever met. You're the only one who doesn't do what I tell you, the only person to say no to me. I wasn't sure whether I'd like it, but I do, it's refreshing. You're unique. And I don't think that's a coincidence."

Oh, God. Her heart fluttered. She actually felt it. She hadn't had feelings like this since… well, since Stirling. The boyfriend who had been murdered.

She tried to play it cool. "What do you mean?"

He smiled at her. It was a genuine smile; it lit up his eyes. "You and me, we're the perfect match. The way we met, our gifts, this connection between us… you see it too. You're the one."

She had the strangest, giddiest feeling, like her stomach had dropped and swooped up at the same time. What he had said was a declaration. It wasn't _I love you_ , but it was close. Kilgrave was a romantic, romantic enough that even she was occasionally swayed by his gifts and his flowers and his compliments.

Surely this was what every woman wanted to hear from her partner. A declaration of specialness. A speech that elevated her above every other woman in the world because they didn't matter in his eyes. He would never choose them. Only her. A million fucking love songs cried out for this very sentiment.

So why couldn't she handle it? Why did her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth?

"Oh," she said, in her least eloquent response to any conversation ever.

"You feel it too," Kilgrave said, enthusiastic enough for the both of them. "Look, forget our histories, tragic or otherwise. That doesn't matter. What matters is us. What we have."

Two minutes ago she'd been worried that he'd hurt another woman. Now… "Which is what? What do you think we have?"

"Passion," he said, and she couldn't deny that. "And challenge, the right sort of challenge. I think we were always going to collide, Jessica, it would have been impossible not to."

"Like an asteroid hitting the Earth, huh."

"Earth-shattering, yeah."

She scoffed, shaking her head. "You're a good talker."

"Thank you."

Charming as ever. He was irrepressible.

Her mother had a phrase. Her real mother, not her adoptive one; Dorothy Walker would have said something quite different. She was at the age when she'd had _the talk_ with her mother and boys were starting to ask her out. Well, one boy. As a gawky fourteen-year old, she hadn't exactly been flooded with interest.

"Beware the charming ones," her mother had said. "That's an immediate red flag. Brian was never charming, that's how I knew he might be decent."

 _Beware the charming ones. They only want one thing._

They moved on to dessert. Treacle tart for him. Jessica stirred her fruit cocktail with a spoon. She'd only ordered it because it had alcohol in it. "Did you break her heart?"

"What?"

"The artist. The woman whose name you can't remember."

He shrugged. "It was two months. I doubt it. We weren't madly in love. You, on the other hand…"

Now this feeling she had, there was a phrase for it too. It probably appeared in every pulpy romance novel. Butterflies in the stomach.

Yeah. Butterflies. That made it sound nice, didn't it? Pretty and delicate and graceful. People underestimated the word _fall_ in falling in love.

Falling didn't hurt, but hitting the ground sure did.

* * *

"You're wondering why it took me so long to figure it out." Her voice was flat. She couldn't look at Trish; she stared into the middle distance instead. Stared at nothing. "That he raped her. He raped all of them. They were his slaves. Everyone he came into contact with, he made a slave, even if only in that moment. I chose not to see it."

Trish objected. "He hid it from you. He was charming, he made it seem like it was normal, like he didn't hurt anyone."

"He didn't hide it that well." That wasn't even the worst part. "I'm not stupid. I'm not blind. I'm…"

The words choked in her throat. She couldn't say it. Trish would never forgive her.

"You're not blind, but love is." Trish leaned forward, taking her hands. "Jessica… I know this is a difficult question but I have to ask. Did you love him?"

She shook her head, smiled bitterly. "Wrong question. That's not the question, Trish. That's not the hard part."

Trish frowned at her. "I don't…"

"You know what I mean."

She knew Trish would get it. She saw the moment that she did, the way Trish's brows rose, the concern in her eyes. "…Do you still love him?"

That was the problem with love. Love was stupid. Love was blind. Love wasn't the great thing that the songs and the stories and the fucking Hugh Grant movies made it out to be. Love was toxic and selfish and all-consuming, and it had destroyed Kilgrave as much as it had destroyed her.

She knew that he loved her. He loved her in the same way he acted on all of his feelings and impulses: with complete and utter disregard for anyone but himself.

As for how she felt… She hated him.

No. Hate wasn't strong enough. She _loathed_ him. She despised him with every inch of her being.

But that didn't mean she didn't love him.

"I don't know," she said. "I'll know when I see him. I don't know."

* * *

In hindsight, Thanksgiving had been a high point.

After that the winter blues set in. When every day was a vacation, no day was a vacation. She was back to being unemployed with nothing to do other than allow Kilgrave to monopolize her time however he wanted.

There were the grey days when she did whatever it was Kilgrave had set his mind on to entertain himself but she felt nothing herself. She went through the motions. Those were blank, fuzzy sort of days; she couldn't remember what they'd done after they'd done it. Her life was white noise. Static.

Then there were the black days when she couldn't get out of bed. She'd stare up at the ceiling and her limbs were so heavy and really, what was the point? What was the point of anything?

Obviously, Kilgrave didn't take this well.

"You're an absolute nightmare, you know that?" he said. "Get up."

She made herself get up. She'd hate herself for doing it later but she spent half a day pretending that she had to follow Kilgrave's orders and that got her through it. Maybe a relationship with Kilgrave would be easier if she was vulnerable to his mind control. He could make her happy then, couldn't he? Wouldn't that be better?

The weirdest things set her off. It was Christmas season – fairy lights and tinsel and bright, bright commercials – and they went to a park that had been transformed with fairground rides, stalls and a Ferris wheel. They were wrapped up in coats, gloves, hats and scarves and drinking mulled wine. They were a walking stereotype.

Still, she used her powers to not-so-subtly beat a fairground game and Kilgrave persuaded another merchant that they'd won a prize so they had a good haul: a giant stuffed rabbit and a bottle of champagne. They stopped by the Ferris wheel, Jessica looking up at the cages slowly rotating high above.

"It'll be cold up there," Kilgrave said, noticing where she was looking. That was his not-so-subtle way of saying that he didn't want to go.

She wasn't too bothered. Ferris wheels weren't that exciting anyway. One of the higher cages was swinging around more than it should, the kids inside apparently making their own excitement. Morons.

She wasn't sure how it happened. Maybe the cage door came loose. One second there was a kid leaning out of the cage, the next a high-pitched scream as he toppled out, and gasps around them as a few people spotted the fall.

Kilgrave hadn't seen it; he wasn't looking. She dropped her mulled wine, shoved the giant stuffed rabbit into his arms and ran without thinking, leaping up into the air–

Cold wind rushed past her. Stars – not stars, fairy lights, arcade lights, the buzz of the city at Christmas. And then a lump of flailing human flesh, a kid, dropping like a stone through the sky. She caught him. It wasn't pretty: he hit her hard, winding her, and she didn't so much glide to the ground as keel over on it. But she made the landing with the kid intact in her arms and she sat there breathing hard as the kid stood up, staring at her, and people crowded around them.

The kid was a teen, she saw, maybe thirteen or fourteen. "You _flew_ ," he said. "Oh my God. Are you a superhero?"

"No," she said. "No, I'm not."

He was getting out his cell phone to take a picture. Flashes around her told her that other people were already doing the same. Maybe they'd even captured her in flight. Great.

Kilgrave strode into the circle of onlookers, ordering them to stand aside in a sharp tone. He raised his voice. "Everyone, delete any pictures or video footage you have of this incident and forget that it happened. Move along. You, kid, move along."

He pulled her to her feet as the kid wandered off.

"Thanks," she muttered.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go home."

* * *

She'd saved a kid's life and Kilgrave had ensured that her face wouldn't appear in the media. Job well done. She should have been happy.

Instead her whole day was ruined.

Back in their apartment, she threw off her things and headed to the bathroom only to find their cleaner still there scrubbing the sink. The cleaner's name was Maria. Fifty-something, curly black hair, she lived somewhere in this apartment block and she came in every morning to make them breakfast and take care of the apartment. Sometimes she cooked dinner too, if Kilgrave didn't feel like going out that night.

That was literally all Jessica knew about her. They'd never talked; she barely said a word. She suspected that Kilgrave had instructed her to be as invisible as possible.

Jessica stared at her. "What are you doing here?"

Maria turned around and Jessica saw that her hands were red-raw. "I'm sorry, I have to work…"

"You're in my way," she snapped. "Get out."

But the cleaner ignored her, going back to her task. Kilgrave must have forgotten to dismiss her. She only listened to his commands. She didn't listen to a word that Jessica said. A surge of rage charged through her muscles, made her fists clench. She hit the wall hard enough to make bits of plaster fall from the ceiling.

"I said _get out_! Get out of my shit!"

"Maria, leave," Kilgrave said to the cleaner, coming up behind Jessica to squeeze her shoulders. She shuddered. "Jessica, what's wrong with you?"

"Get off me!" She tore out of his grasp, storming into the bathroom. "I just want to take a goddamn shit in the privacy of my own goddamn apartment!"

She slammed the door shut and for once Kilgrave didn't say anything.

* * *

It was easier to confess things in the dark. It was like speaking into the ether, the void. Cool air, a warm bed. No distractions, just the whorls on the ceiling as she stared up, breaking the silence.

"Sorry about earlier."

She could feel him next to her, a warm shape in the dark. He wasn't touching her. It had been an awkward night.

"You lost your temper. Why?"

"I don't know." She sighed, shifting. She couldn't place the reasons. There were either too many or not enough. "I wasn't in control."

"You need to be careful," he said. "Someone could get hurt."

"I know… I guess I've… got a lot of anger. Like it lives inside me."

There was a pause. "Well," he said eventually. "We'll have to do something about that."

She snorted. "Yeah. You know why I hate all this superhero stuff?"

"Because it's insufferably silly?"

"No… I mean, it is, but… no. It's because I don't feel good about myself."

Kilgrave was silent again, uncharacteristically so, but she felt the mattress shift as he turned to look at her. She tried to think of how to explain herself and couldn't.

His voice was soft. "Why don't you feel good about yourself?"

"I don't know, ask my therapist." She exhaled, swallowing. "It's probably survivor's guilt or some shit like that. People I love have died and I don't know why I'm still here."

"You know what I think?"

She turned to look at him then, made out his dark eyes soft with love. She blinked a tear out of her eye.

"I think you're a survivor," he said.

At the time, it seemed profound.

* * *

She regretted that conversation the next day. She'd told Kilgrave things she hadn't told anyone else, hadn't even admitted to herself. There was something rotten inside her. A Jessica that was dying, decaying, her muscles slabs of rotting meat, her bones poking out. Her body was a hollow shell; the real Jessica was shrinking.

Everything was shrinking. The apartment. The city. It all closed around her and she couldn't get out.

She stared out of the window at the dull grey street below and wondered what it would be like to splatter her head on the sidewalk. The shell Jessica would split open like a Russian doll and the rotten Jessica would spill out for all to see.

That wouldn't happen, of course. The drop wasn't big enough to kill her: enhanced strength also implied enhanced durability. She'd have to try harder than that.

Kilgrave hadn't forgotten the conversation either. He started on it the very next day.

"I was thinking about what you said," he began over lunch and she resisted from rolling her eyes.

"Oh?"

"Something's up with you, Jessica. You're insecure, you have low self-esteem, mood swings… You know those are all signs of mental illness."

"Oh, Christ. Have you been googling?"

"I'm not a doctor. I'm just saying what I see. And I want you to be happy, Jessica. You should be happy, you can have anything you want. One of my gifts is making people happy. I'm good at it; I can make anyone smile. But not you. I've got my work cut out with you."

She snorted. "So what, I'm your pet project now? You'll level up your charm ability by working on me?"

"Why do you always make everything sound so insidious?" he complained and then sighed, shaking his head. "Look. I'm saying this because I care about you. I want to help. Tell me what's on your mind."

She stared at him for what felt like an age, then turned her head towards the window again. "Do you ever feel like your life lacks direction?"

He smiled slightly. "Think about who you're asking. Is that how you feel?"

"No, I mean it. All we do is go out, eat, sleep and fuck. Is that enough for you? Is that it?"

He frowned, nonplussed. "What else do you want?"

"I don't know. Meaning. A purpose. Something to make me get up in the morning."

"We have that. We have each other."

She looked at him unhappily and he must have known that he wasn't enough, must have understood. His mouth twisted.

"I see. You're right, your life does lack direction. You've failed to provide it for yourself and then you complain that what I give you isn't good enough. I'm trying, Jessica. I see now that I need to do more."

Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. "What do you mean, do more?"

"We've been stuck in a rut," he said. "We need to try new things, liven things up. But to do that, you have to trust me. Can you do that?"

Trusting him. It was funny. She'd never talked about that with him. Jessica was slow to trust in general; one of the benefits of having lived with an abusive foster mother. But once she'd understood his powers and realised that they didn't work on her, she'd felt safe. Kilgrave had one weapon and he couldn't use it on her. It was easier to trust someone when you knew you could hold them to account.

Even so, she wasn't going to give in that easily. "Trust you to do what?"

His eyes softened. "To make you happy."

It was an impossible task. It had to be. No one could make someone else happy, not if that person was already broken. He couldn't fix this.

But she didn't have an answer. She didn't have an alternative. All her life she'd been blown along by the wind, pushed and pulled one way or the other through forces outside her control. She'd considered becoming a superhero for a hot minute before bailing. She had so much power but she couldn't stop the car crash. Couldn't stop Trish being abused. Couldn't keep a fucking job.

Kilgrave was optimistic. He had hope. His was the only hope she had.

"Well," she said. "You can try."

He grinned like a little kid, leaping up to drum his hands on the table. "Right choice! Up you get, Jones. Pack your bags. We're going on vacation."


	7. she said she liked british guys

**vii. she said she liked british guys**

Wasn't his life one big vacation?

That was her first complaint but he was hearing none of it. She packed her bags like he told her and they got into a taxi. He wouldn't say where they were going. She realised what was up when she saw the signs on the highway. JFK.

"The airport?" She turned to look at him. "Are we flying to another state?"

"You'll see," he replied.

She saw when they arrived at the departure lounge and Kilgrave strolled up to the check-in desk for flights to London Heathrow. She grabbed his arm.

"I don't have a passport," she hissed. "I can't leave the country."

"Relax," he said. "You're with me."

She stared, biting her lip, as Kilgrave approached the lady at the check-in desk and produced two passports from inside his jacket pocket. One of them was the dark blue of a US passport. She'd never had one but she knew what they looked like. The other was burgundy, representing the European Union. A British passport.

Was it his passport? Had he procured fake passports for both of them? When did he do that?

She had so many questions but she couldn't say anything while Kilgrave talked to the lady at the check-in desk. Her stomach tied itself in knots.

Of course her fear was unfounded. Despite feeling like she had a giant neon sign above her head shouting _I'm not supposed to be here_ , Kilgrave swept them through airport security with ease. He avoided any machines and talked to a person every time to let them through, holding Jessica's hand at every juncture.

 _He really can go anywhere_ , she thought, feeling somewhat dizzy at the idea. US security was supposed to be amongst the most stringent in the world. But as long as they had human beings in their security system, they were fallible. Kilgrave could exploit them.

That was how she found herself flying first class on a jumbo jet over the Atlantic, being served champagne at thirty thousand feet.

Kilgrave yawned and stretched his legs. "Is this your first time flying?"

"No," she said. "First time out of the country though. Let me see that."

She pointed at his jacket pocket and Kilgrave looked blank for a moment before he realised what she meant and handed her the US passport. Jessica opened it. The name on the passport was Oscar Tremaine. Judging by the photo he was forty-something and had a beard. The passport had expired two years ago.

She looked up at Kilgrave. "You didn't even try."

He raised his eyebrows. "Didn't need to. We only needed to look as though we're carrying the right documents. That's enough to avoid too much suspicion."

He was right. It was all optics with him. As long as he looked like he belonged, no one would question his presence and then he only needed to command the next person in front of him to get where he wanted.

Jessica gave him back the passport, then drummed her fingers on the arm of her seat. "Is yours the same?"

"As in, not mine? Yes."

So looking at it would be meaningless. She looked out of the window, at the clouds scudding below them, the sun setting over the horizon. They were over the ocean. It was a dark mass, could be anywhere. Seven hours to London.

She lifted the champagne glass to her mouth. The liquid fizzed on her tongue. Then she looked again at Kilgrave. "What's your name?"

He blinked. "What?"

"Your name."

He gave her something of an incredulous look. "Jessica, darling, I know this is your first long-haul flight and we're a very long way up, but even you can't have forgotten that."

"Don't be an asshole." She rolled her eyes. "Kilgrave isn't your real name. I'm talking about the name your parents gave you. You're taking me to England, where you were born. What happened there? Where did you grow up? Is London your hometown? Is that why you're taking me there?"

Kilgrave held up his hand. "That's a lot of questions. Okay. Look, I'm not taking you to London because I've got some idea in my head that I want to take you on a trip through my childhood. You can put that out of your mind for a start. I lived in London for a while and I think you'll enjoy it, that's all."

"So you didn't grow up in London?"

"No."

"Then where are you from?"

He made a frustrated sound. "Does it matter? Drop it."

His tone was sharp and she nearly opened her mouth to retort. Instead she caught the eye of one of the cabin crew coming over and shut her mouth again, turning back to the window. Arguing in a metal tube suspended thousands of feet above the ground was not a good idea, not with their tempers.

But she hadn't forgotten his refusal to talk. It was the most obvious indication of something that had bothered her for some time: he was keeping secrets from her. Names had histories. He wouldn't tell her his.

No identifying documents, no bank account, no permanent address. Other than asking, she had no way of finding out any more about him.

Did it matter?

* * *

It didn't matter for the first week or so. They celebrated Christmas and the New Year in the capital city. Kilgrave was right: the change of scenery helped. She looked out over a new skyline, at the Thames snaking its way through the city, the Tower Bridge, the Shard, the boats on the river, the red London buses, and on any other winter's day it would have been grey and cold but it was Christmas and that meant a kind of magic.

Or fairy lights. It meant fairy lights.

Kilgrave compelled the staff to decorate their hotel room, except for the Christmas tree which he wanted to decorate with her. They played Christmas music and danced around, Kilgrave belting out _All I Want For Christmas Is You_ at high volume. She smashed a couple of baubles in the process but by the end of the playlist they had a fully decorated tree with a star on top and Jessica was flushed and smiling more than she had done in weeks.

On Christmas Day they wore matching red pyjamas that he'd brought from a department store.

"Merry Christmas," he said, and he put his arm around her while she opened her presents.

There was a childish excitement that came with tearing off wrapping paper that never really went away. She might only be getting presents from Kilgrave this year, but one thing she could never accuse him of was lack of generosity. She got a pair of fluffy slippers, a negligée and matching underwear (he never tired of seeing her in new lingerie), lipstick, earrings, a sequinned blue dress, perfume, chocolate, a bottle of whiskey and a Christmas jumper.

"Oh my God, it's musical," she said when she accidentally set it off playing _Santa Baby_.

"Cute, huh," he said. "It'll only become annoying after… hmm, the fifth or sixth time maybe?"

"I'll wear it today," she decided. "That's it."

"Good enough for me. So what do you think? You like?"

She smiled at him. "I love."

The bed was a mess of gifts and wrapping paper. She felt warm and fuzzy inside. And she had something for him too. Jessica leaned down and pulled out a badly-wrapped present from under the bed.

Kilgrave was immediately interested. "What's that?"

"It's for you." She handed it over. "What, you didn't think I'd get you anything? Sorry it's just the one thing. You're really hard to buy for."

"It's fine," he said, handling the present like it was made of spun gold. He opened it and Jessica watched his expression change from curiosity to delight to something else that she couldn't quite interpret.

It was a photo frame, and inside the frame was a photograph of Jessica. Not one that he'd taken himself; this picture would be new to him. It was a close-up of Jessica smiling, her hair loose and falling around her shoulders, the sun lighting up her features. The photograph had been taken in Hyde Park though little of it could be seen in the background. Her main concern had been to get the right lighting. She'd taken several shots whenever she had a second away from Kilgrave that day, a mixture of selfies and shots from helpful strangers, before she'd settled on a good one. She looked natural and carefree. She looked like she was living in the moment.

"I would have gotten one of both of us," she said, "but I know you don't like having your picture taken. And I wanted to get you something that you couldn't get yourself."

Since he could get anything himself. He could take a photograph of her and put it in a frame if he wanted to, of course, but not this photograph, not one that she'd specially taken just for him.

Kilgrave was running his fingers along the frame. He looked up at her and to her surprise he was teary-eyed.

"It's beautiful," he said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Kilgrave put the frame down, rubbing at his eyes. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I… No one's given me a real present like this since I was eight years old."

Oh.

He was trying not to cry. She wasn't sure what to do, settling for an awkward pat on the arm.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." He sniffed and smiled back at her. "Wow. I didn't expect that to hit so hard. I think I'm experiencing a newfound appreciation for the human spirit."

"It's just a present," she said. "I'm your girlfriend, it's normal for me to get you something."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I know."

But she could tell it meant more to him than anything he'd gotten for her. Jessica snuggled her head into his shoulder.

"Do you need a minute?"

"Yeah."

* * *

Times like that she almost felt sorry for the bastard. He had no notion of what it was like to be truly loved. The glimpses he had he clung to like a starving flower in the desert.

Anyway.

* * *

The New Year came and went. They were right by Big Ben when the countdown happened and the fireworks display began around the London Eye. At the stroke of midnight Kilgrave swept her into his arms and kissed her, and she felt like she'd had one of those movie moments, the kind that happened right before happily ever after.

Of course the movies didn't capture the _smell_ of central London on New Year's Eve, a mix of booze and weed and sweat, nor the press of bodies around her. Even Kilgrave couldn't keep ordering away the crowds. Wrapped up in her winter coat, it was surprisingly hot.

Nor did the movies go into what happened after happily ever after.

In Jessica's case, she woke up in the hotel room nursing a blinding hangover and spent most of the first day of the year in bed or stumbling around the bathroom.

"So are we flying back tonight?" she asked over dinner, when her head was finally starting to clear.

"I think we need a day or two to recover, don't you?"

She didn't think to argue. A day or two turned into a few days, which turned into a week, and she looked out onto the London skyline to find it every bit as dull and bleak as New York had been.

She rejected Kilgrave's suggestion that they go to the theatre by throwing a shoe at him.

He dodged it. "Jessica! Control yourself!"

"Vacation's over, Kilgrave. We've been here for three weeks. I want to go home."

Her stare was belligerent, Kilgrave's calculating. He picked up the shoe and set it down by their bed. Then he came over and sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

"We're having a good time here. I think we should stay a while. There's still plenty to show you…"

She shook her head. "I'm done sightseeing. London's great, but I've seen enough. New York is my home."

Kilgrave's eyes bored into hers. "New York is where you used to live. That doesn't make it home. What would you go back there for? What's there that you don't have here?"

"My apartment."

"Your empty apartment. It can wait."

She twisted her mouth. "Trish. God, Trish. I haven't spoken to her in…"

She couldn't think how long. Months. Not since she'd walked out on her and shacked up with Kilgrave.

"She hasn't spoken to you," Kilgrave corrected her softly. "Has she bothered to check up on you? Does she even know where you are?"

"No," Jessica whispered, tears pricking her eyes. She thought she'd had a good time with all the festive stuff, but there was a chasm in her chest where Trish used to be. They'd celebrated every New Year together since Jessica was adopted, even when it meant a visit to rehab.

This time… nothing. Trish hadn't bothered reaching out.

"Be honest, Jessica," Kilgrave went on, his silky voice tearing her skin. "What do you have to go back for?"

"I…"

She couldn't answer. It was humiliating. The emotion gushed out of her from nowhere. She'd been fine before this. She'd been happy. But the tears poured out like they'd been there all along, and Kilgrave held her, kissed her forehead, stroked her hair.

"You have me," he whispered. "You'll always have me."

He fucked her tenderly that night, whispered sweet nothings into her ear. She barely felt a thing.

She was numb.

* * *

In the end Christmas was just tinsel and bits of paper. Her life was empty. This vacation was papering over the cracks, but the cracks were getting wider, longer, impossible to ignore.

She saw a porcelain doll, cracked with age and dusty, posed on a mantelpiece that no one had touched in years. If anyone tried to move it, it might shatter. It was that fragile.

That was in a museum. She'd forgotten everything else, even what museum it was. She ignored Kilgrave losing his temper with some middle-aged man, didn't blink when he called the man a wanker and told his wife to kick her husband in the bollocks.

Later, back at the hotel room, Kilgrave disappeared to have a shower and she drank a glass of gin.

This time last year, she would probably have been sharing the gin with Trish and they'd be commiserating over disastrous dates or laughing at Trish's ridiculous ideas for Jessica's superhero costume.

A tear squeezed out of her eye. She couldn't think of Trish without crying.

 _What am I doing?_

 _Does Trish miss me? Is she thinking about me?_

She picked up her phone with trembling hands and flicked through the address book, finding Trish's number. She could call. Or text. She could reach out.

Her mind was blank. What could she say?

Jessica stared at the name on the screen and swallowed, fighting back more tears. God, she was tired. She was in a strange country with no friends and no legal status and she was tired.

She opened Facebook for the first time in months. In the past, Jessica had proudly proclaimed that Facebook was a waste of time and that she knew who her real friends were. She wasn't one of those people obsessed with posting Instagram selfies or Facebook photo stories. She had a life; she wasn't interested in documenting it for the benefit of strangers.

Trish had several social media accounts as part of her job as a radio personality. But her Facebook account was locked only to friends, so it was the closest approximation to real life that Jessica was going to get.

She scrolled through Trish's feed. Pictures of meals out with friends and colleagues. Guests at Trish's radio show. A new guy that Jessica didn't recognise, but she quickly deduced that this was a new boyfriend. They'd spent the New Year together. There was a picture of them at the parade.

Trish's life was going on without her. She seemed happy.

 _She's better off without me._

 _I was only ever a drain on her anyway._

 _She doesn't want to see me._

 _She doesn't want me back._

A lump formed in her throat. Jessica closed Trish's profile, returning back to her own news feed. She couldn't do it. She couldn't reach out to Trish. She scrolled through the other posts with no real aim in mind, scanning the headlines as a distraction.

She stopped at a post from the night before. _Fab evening in Camden_ , it read, with a picture of three women toasting the camera. They were at some sort of media event.

Fiona Beckett. The woman in the middle. She was a friend of Jessica's from college but they'd lost touch after Fiona moved to London for a job at a branding agency.

Fiona was here.

She could reach out to Fiona. There was nothing stopping her. No bad blood between them, other than years of no contact. No Atlantic in the way of seeing her. No baggage.

Jessica sent a message and held her breath.

The reply came within five minutes. Yes, Fiona was pleased to hear from her. Yes, she'd love to meet up for coffee. She could have cried. The sheer joy and relief was like a balloon popping.

She hadn't realised how lonely she was.

* * *

But there was Kilgrave to deal with.

She hadn't been out without him since coming to London. He wouldn't expect her to go off on her own. He'd ask questions.

She told herself it was absurd. She was a grown-ass woman, she had _super powers_. She didn't need Kilgrave's permission to go anywhere.

On the day they were due to meet, she didn't look at Kilgrave while they sat down for breakfast. She ate her yoghurt in silence.

"Looks like a sunny day," Kilgrave said, glancing outside. "I fancy a walk along the Thames. You can wear your new coat."

Despite everything she'd told herself, her hands were clammy when she met Kilgrave's eyes. "Go if you want. I can't, I'm meeting a friend."

She might as well have announced that she'd poisoned his tea. He stared at her. "What?"

"It's a girl I knew from college," she said, anticipating his next question. "I haven't seen her in a while, so we're having lunch."

"Oh," he said. "And when were you planning to tell me?"

"I just told you."

"And you didn't think to ask? We had plans."

Her grip tightened around her spoon. She imagined it was Kilgrave and that she was strangling his scrawny British neck. "We never have plans, Kilgrave. You wake up and you decide to do whatever comes into your goddamn head. I've got a lunch date with a friend. You do whatever the hell you want like you always do."

There was a pause. He sipped his tea. "I see." He was being dangerously calm about this. She'd expected him to yell. "Well, in that case I'll come with you. I didn't know you had a friend in London. It'll be good to meet her."

She stared at him. Shit. She tried to do one thing without him and he still found a way to insert himself. "I'm meeting her on my own. You're not coming."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to."

His face darkened. "Why?"

"For fuck's sake." She stood up, shoving back her chair. "Because I see you every goddamn minute of every goddamn day and I'm tired of you, Kilgrave. I want to talk to another human being for a change. I want to talk to someone who isn't a mind controlling asshole with an ego like a fucking balloon."

He stared at her for a long, agonising moment. "Jessica, has it ever occurred to you that I'm getting tired of you too? Your bitterness, your constant complaining, your ungrateful attitude. Do you think I enjoy that? Do you think I enjoy mollycoddling you every time you get upset over nothing?"

"Mollycoddling me?" He was unbelievable sometimes. She shook her head in disgust. "Shut up."

She grabbed her jacket – her old battered leather jacket, not the long fur-trimmed coat he'd got for her – and stomped over to the door. Kilgrave was up at once, blocking her way, and he snarled at her.

"Don't you _dare_ tell me to shut up–"

She didn't let him finish. Her hand shot out and she grabbed his throat, lifting him up. That shut him up. He choked, dangling an inch from the floor, his eyes practically popping out of his skull.

Jessica stared him down. "You let me walk out of here or I swear to God I will break your arm. Got it?"

He attempted a nod. His face was going red. He'd pass out soon if she didn't let him go. She dropped him on the floor where he collapsed gasping for breath, and walked out without another word.

* * *

It didn't feel good, doing that.

Maybe it should have done. Maybe it was justice. Maybe she'd feel like it was justice if she did it again.

But it didn't feel like that at the time. It felt like she was what he claimed she was: a domestic abuser.

"He said _you_ were the abuser?"

"Wasn't I?" She gave Trish a look. "I hit him. I half-strangled him. He never hit me."

"Only because he couldn't. He knew you'd overpower him."

She'd like to believe that. It was easy to reduce people. Kilgrave did it all the time. They became their component parts, their functions: the driver, the cook, the store clerk, the sex toy.

She could think the same of Kilgrave. He was a psychopath, end of. He caused nothing but suffering; he was a blight, a disease that needed to be eradicated. There was no evil he wasn't capable of.

Getting to know psychopaths was dangerous. Because, once you did it, they started to seem human.

* * *

She managed to be ten minutes late for her lunch date with Fiona because the Underground made no goddamn sense. So much for being a grown-ass adult.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Fiona said when she apologised. "It's so good to see you, Jessica! How are you?"

"I'm good," Jessica lied, smiling brightly.

Yeah, she was good. Her head hurt and there was dread in her heart, but she was good. Her phone buzzed. She ignored it. They ordered food – a salad with every super food known to man for Fiona and a burger for Jessica. Skinny latte, milkshake.

"You look great," Fiona said, which had to be a lie as well. Jessica had deliberately thrown on her old jeans and jacket in rebellion against Kilgrave and her hair was an untamed black mess.

Jessica slurped her milkshake. "Thanks. So do you."

Fiona did look good. Hair beautifully curled, polished nails, perfect skin. She was wearing a cute jumper dress with black leggings and boots, the kind of look that seemed casual but must have been carefully put together.

Fiona smiled. "So how are you finding London? If you need any advice on how to get around, I'm happy to help."

"Oh, I'm not staying," Jessica corrected her. "I'm on vacation. Came here for the New Year."

Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it, again.

"Wow, that's such a long vacation. I'm so jealous. So you did the whole countdown thing? Patrick and I always spend New Year's in Cornwall with his family, get away from the crowds, you know. What are you up to nowadays? Are you still in New York?"

"Yeah," Jessica said. "Yeah, same-old, same-old."

Another buzz. Jessica's smile was beginning to crack.

"Are you sure you don't want to get that?" Fiona asked, mildly concerned. "It's okay, I don't mind."

Another. Fucking hell. She fished her phone out of her jacket pocket and practically jabbed at the screen. "It's nothing," she said, scanning her messages. "Just my mom being an asshole. Did I tell you about my mom?"

Twelve missed calls and a litany of messages. No prizes for guessing who.

 _Call me back. We need to talk._

 _Tell me where you are and I'll come get you._

 _I need to know where you are. NOW._

 _I know where you are. Stay put, I'll be there soon._

 _And be ready to apologise. I expect better from you._

"Your mom?" Fiona looked awkward for a second. "I thought…"

"My adoptive mom. She's a talent agent, pimps out kids for money." Jessica frowned at the last message. "Wants me to go to some event for Trish. Give me a second, I'll blow her off."

 _Come and get me, asshole._

Fiona was nice about it. Their food arrived and she got started on her hideous-looking salad while Jessica stared at her text and then sighed, deleting it.

 _I'm here. Stop interrupting._

Nope.

 _I'm here._

That would have to do.

"She sounds like a nightmare," Fiona said sympathetically.

"You have no idea."

It was nice for maybe ten minutes. Nice. That was the only positive word she could dredge out of her brain. Nice to catch up. Nice to talk about something other than Kilgrave. Nice to hear about another person's life, even if it only showed up how screwed up hers was.

Fiona was planning her wedding in the summer. She had a great job. She loved London. She was applying to be a British citizen. She had it all.

 _Maybe it's inevitable_ , she thought. _People like us don't get to have normal lives._

She tried some kale. It didn't meet the hype.

"You don't like it?" Fiona asked.

She shrugged. "It's fine. Edible."

"But it's not a burger. I know. I'm so jealous. I put on three pounds if I so much as look at a burger. I'm on a diet until the wedding. Gotta fit into that wedding dress."

"Wow," Jessica said. "At least you can pig out after that, right?"

"Yeah, I'll totally let myself go after marriage." She laughed. "He can't get away from me then."

"You've got it all figured out."

She surprised herself as well as Fiona with the bitterness in her tone. The minutest of frowns creased Fiona's brow. The rest of her forehead presumably refused to do so because that would cause wrinkles and Fiona was preparing to get married.

"Jess, are you okay?"

"Jessica, darling, there you are!"

Her knuckles tightened. Her nails scraped red lines into her skin. Kilgrave approached with a smile, bending down to kiss her hair.

"You didn't say you had a boyfriend!" Fiona was delighted. "Hi there."

"Hello yourself," Kilgrave replied, reaching out to shake Fiona's hand. "You're a beauty, aren't you – no wonder Jessica tried to keep me away. Pop over to the bathroom for five minutes, sweetheart, Jessica and I need to talk."

Fiona smiled her acquiescence and vacated her seat, which Kilgrave promptly took. He folded his arms on the table and met her eyes. She stared back, her mouth set. Two seconds. Three seconds. He didn't say anything, he just stared, cold and expectant.

She gave a loud and frustrated sigh and held up her phone. "Twelve missed calls and you have nothing to say?"

"I'm waiting for you to apologise. I hope it's a good one."

"I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"Funny. Physically, I'm fine. Emotionally… not so much. You promised that you wouldn't hurt me again and I was foolish enough to believe you."

She opened her mouth and closed it again. A familiar guilt washed through her gut. Goddammit. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."

"Say you'll make it up to me."

"How?"

"Let's do what you should have done in the first place. Invite her over."

She stared. "We're staying in a hotel, we can't invite her over for tea."

"Of course we can." He stood up, beckoning for her to join him. "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine."

* * *

They did have tea. Tea and scones, in fact, with jam and cream. The tea came in a silly china pot and the tea cups were so dainty she thought she'd break hers just by picking it up.

Fiona thought that Kilgrave was terribly dashing. She laughed at every little thing he said. "That's so awesome that you found yourself a British boyfriend, Jessica! Maybe I'm biased, but I think British guys are the hottest."

Kilgrave grinned at her over his teacup. "Can't deny that."

Fiona giggled. Jessica ground her teeth.

They were in a private dining room reserved especially for afternoon tea, Jessica and Fiona sharing a couch while Kilgrave had an armchair to himself. And because he was sitting opposite her, she could see the way he was looking at Fiona, like she was a cake he wanted a piece of.

Fiona excused herself to go to the bathroom and Jessica set down her teacup with enough force to spill some of the liquid over the glass table. The teacup didn't break.

"What are you doing?"

"What?"

"Is this your way of punishing me? You're practically screwing her with your eyes."

"Jessica…" He shook his head. "I don't want to punish you. I want to… find a new way of connecting with you. Getting through to you. What did it feel like when you choked me?"

Her eyes widened. "What?"

"What did it feel like? Did it feel good?"

His words were tiny barbs that caught in her throat. _Did it feel good?_ Did it feel good to use her strength to get her own way, to overpower someone, to throw them down?

"Yes," she whispered.

"You had me at your mercy," he went on. "I couldn't do anything. Then you let me go. I think I know why you've been frustrated lately. You've been holding back; you haven't expressed yourself. That feeling you had, that sense of control. I can show you what it's like to feel that completely."

The barbs wouldn't go away. She was aware of all the tiny hairs on her arm standing on end, prickling her skin. She swallowed. "What do you mean?"

Kilgrave smiled, turning his head as Fiona returned with a bounce in her step and a bright smile. "I can show you with her. Fiona, darling. You'd like to come up to our room."


	8. milk

**viii. milk**

"I'm a sick fuck, Trish." Everything trembled. Her voice, her lips, her skin. She was mush. She was garbage. "I did things with him that I never thought I'd do. I did it. Me."

* * *

They were gentle nudges.

 _You want to do it._

 _You're going to love it._

 _You're going to scream._

Maybe he was that irresistible. Maybe he was Prince fucking Charming and she was his princess. She was in his castle. His rules. He was only giving her a taste of his power.

"We can do anything we want with her," he promised. "She's yours to play with."

Fiona was perched on the end of the bed with one leg crossed over the other, like one of those plastic mannequins posed in a storefront. Her face was plastered with a smile. That was the only command Kilgrave had given so far: _Smile_. She looked like a Barbie doll.

What was supposed to happen here? Did he want her to choke her? Fuck her? Both? She looked at Kilgrave. Swallowed.

"What if I don't want to?"

His tone became cold in an instant. "Then you can leave. We all have urges, Jessica. We all like to be in control. I'm giving you an outlet but if you won't use it then I'm not going to be your punching bag. If you leave now, you can't come back."

A chill ran through her. If she left now, she'd be alone. Stranded. Lost.

She looked again at Fiona. Licked her lips.

"But I'm not in control."

He was. He always was.

"Yes, you are, look." He leaned over, whispered into Fiona's ear. "Do as Jessica says."

Fiona looked up at Jessica. Awaiting orders. Kilgrave had his hand on her shoulder, like she was another gift he was giving her.

She was sweating. She was hot and cold. Fiona looked so _trusting_. Still happy. Still her friend. If he expected her to take out her frustration on another human being, on an innocent person, then the answer was no. She couldn't do it.

She crossed her arms. "I won't hurt her."

"Jessica." He looked reproachful. "Who said anything about hurting her?"

There was a ship in the ocean. It was heading towards an iceberg. Ten percent of the iceberg could be seen above the water, white and smooth. Ninety percent of the iceberg was hidden in the depths, white and jagged, and it was this mass of ice that would pierce the hull of the ship, sink it, drown it.

The ship could have swerved. It could have changed its course, even then. But–

"You're overthinking again," said Kilgrave quietly, seeing the look in her eyes. He moved away from Fiona and towards her, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. "Relax. We're all adults here. Let's have some fun."

But it didn't, because the captain was a sick fucking cunt.

 _I just did what he wanted. I had to make it up to him. I had to._

It didn't feel bad in the moment. It didn't look bad. If Fiona really didn't want it, then she would have given a sign, wouldn't she? Even with Kilgrave's commands, there would have been something to pick up on. Some hesitation, reluctance. Some pain in her eyes. Deep down in those windows to the soul, Jessica would have noticed her screaming.

But she didn't.

* * *

In the morning he kicked Fiona out without ceremony and Jessica threw up in the bathroom. Another hangover. Her mouth was dry. She had a migraine.

Kilgrave looked at her askance when she shuffled out of the bathroom like the walking dead. "You look terrible. What's wrong?"

She found a circular armchair to curl up in. Maybe it could swallow her up. "Headache."

"Do you need a doctor?"

She shook her head.

"Paracetamol then."

He got up to fetch it. In some ways, he was like a lot of men she had known. Thinking that he'd solved problems by fixing them. Her father was like that.

She took the little packet of pills and the glass of water that Kilgrave offered her. This was the closest to caring that he ever got, actually getting up and doing something for her instead of ordering someone else to do it. He smiled as she gulped the tablets down, perching on the arm of her chair.

"Better?"

She wiped her mouth, looking up at him. "She's engaged."

"Your friend?"

"Yeah. She's getting married in the summer."

"All the more reason for her not to say anything."

A shrug of an answer. He thought no more of it than that. Her head was pounding. She had her cell phone gripped in her hand, an open message that had been blank for an hour. She couldn't talk to Fiona. She couldn't contact her ever again.

Jessica put the phone down in her lap, slowly, as if it were made of cement.

Her eyes met Kilgrave's. "Can we forget this ever happened?"

"Why?"

She shook her head. He didn't understand. Of course he didn't. "No reason."

She drank a full bottle of whiskey that night, made herself ill. It was the only way to forget.

* * *

Things changed after that. His boundaries changed. He wanted her to do things that she didn't want to do.

He moved them into a new apartment in central London, acquired a cleaner and a cook. It was one of those modern open-plan spaces, everything connected to everything else. She wasn't consulted on any of this. The move passed her by. She felt sure that the place had owners before but she missed the part where Kilgrave convinced them to leave. Maybe he paid them. She didn't know.

They were in the lounge with the TV playing on the wall, their cook toiling away in the kitchen area behind them.

"Fine," he said when she refused him. "We can find another playmate. Someone willing."

"You mean… another woman?"

She glanced sideways at Violet chopping carrots by the stove. Violet was a pensioner. Probably not what he had in mind.

"Why not?" Kilgrave said. "You enjoyed it last time, it'll be fun for both of us. We should definitely do it again."

Oh, he was serious. Fuck. She looked away from him, staring out of the window as she tried to calm herself. They didn't hurt her. Fiona was fine. She was fine. But if he wanted to do it again… Make her go through all that, again…

The apartment was only ten storeys high. She wouldn't go splat; she'd only break a leg. That and cuts from the broken glass. It didn't look that strong.

"Jessica."

She blinked. "What?"

"Jessica, are you listening to me?"

She forced herself back to the present. "I'm not into women. I only did that because you wanted me to."

"Oh."

She'd disappointed him. Punctured his illusion, maybe. He'd only seen what was happening on the outside, the tip of the iceberg. God, she couldn't do it again. She couldn't. It was always worst when other people were involved. The dead man in the barn. The patron at the bar who had stopped turning up. The cleaner with her hands red and sore.

She had to stop this train of thought before it started.

He was sitting opposite her on the couch with his legs crossed, casual and relaxed. Jessica crawled over to him and placed her hand on his arm, sickly-sweet.

"I don't like you being with other women. I want you to myself."

She thought saying that would appeal to his ego. That she'd appease him.

"Well, then."

He looked expectant. Chop, chop, chop. Violet had moved on to slicing potatoes. Everything looked so _ordinary_. Orderly. Pristine. They lived in a magical world where everything was done for them. Kilgrave made it happen.

And all he wanted in return was…

She closed her eyes. "What?"

He wanted her to act like she didn't want it. Pretend to struggle, pretend to be overcome.

"Pretend to be overpowered by your scrawny ass. That's a stretch."

He spread his hands. "That's why it's a game."

"Why?" she asked. "If you want your little power trip fantasy, why don't I pretend that you're mind controlling me?"

"That's boring, I do that all the time. No one ever says no to me. I want you to say no."

She tried to work out what exactly it was about this scenario that got him off. Was it the experience of physically overcoming resistance, rather than bypassing it altogether? Was it that she could break him like a twig, and he got to pretend that he had that power instead? Did he get a vicarious satisfaction from imagining that he could overcome her despite her strength?

Was he getting bored of having a girlfriend who wanted to be with him?

She felt strange after he'd finished. Not like the ravished heroine of a bodice-ripping thriller. Not like she'd enjoyed it or hadn't enjoyed it. It was an out-of-body experience, like she was watching herself being the plaything that he wanted. Where was Jessica? Where had she put her?

Was there any Jessica left?

She turned to Kilgrave and her voice was small. "I want to go home."

"They say home is where the heart is. Mine is with you."

She'd heard that phrase. The response that came to her wasn't one he'd want to hear. _My heart is with Trish._

"We've still got that apartment," she said instead. "Don't you want to go back?"

"Not yet. There's no rush, sweetheart. We can stay as long as we want."

He said 'we', like it was a joint decision. She rolled over, closing her eyes, and felt the sting of tears on her cheeks. She didn't have a passport. She had no route out of the country without Kilgrave and he knew it.

She was trapped.

* * *

She lay wide awake while he was asleep. It was morning. She hadn't checked the time, but she knew it was the early hours. She could tell by the strange half-light filtering through the curtains, the eerie white of an alien abduction or a ghostly visit. London was never quiet nor was it ever dark, but this was the city in its dreamiest state. Most of its inhabitants asleep. Some passing through.

There were two ways to escape.

One: get a passport and run away by herself. She'd have to find someone who could make her a fake US passport first and she had no idea where to begin.

Two: kidnap Kilgrave. Force him to take her back to New York. She didn't know how she could do that either. Sure, she could overpower him, knock him out, threaten to rip his balls off, etc. But she needed him alive and conscious to get them through airport security and there would be nothing stopping him from commanding the security officers to stop her. She imagined holding a knife to his back, imagined choking him every time he tried an unwanted command. She couldn't imagine how that wouldn't lead to getting caught.

She drifted in and out of sleep. She dreamed about it. Not about escaping: she never managed that. In her dreams she tried and failed to get out. Kilgrave was always there, his voice in her ear, whispering, commanding. In her dreams she was vulnerable to his mind control. He told her to stop and her limbs froze. He told her to come with him and she followed like a dog at his heel. He told her to kiss him and touch him and she felt the heat of his lips and his fingers on her skin. He told her to make love to him.

She woke up with Kilgrave on top of her, his arousal hard against her stomach. "There's my girl." His eyes were bright. "Good morning."

He brushed kisses along her jawline, his fingers already tugging down her underwear. She sighed and turned her head.

"Say something."

He didn't like it when she was bored and unresponsive during sex. He always wanted attention, like a fucking dog that wouldn't stop humping people.

"Something," she said, her voice flat.

"Jessica," he huffed. But it didn't stop him. She was barely awake and he was all over her.

Whatever. She didn't care. She let him carry on.

* * *

Sex was no longer something they had. It was something he did to her.

Her possessions had gradually disappeared. Her leather jacket had vanished when they moved. Her boots went a few days later. If she asked him about it he always had an excuse. They were old, dirty; they needed a clear-out; they couldn't take everything with them.

She opened her underwear drawer and everything in there made her itch. Lace, silk, scraps of material designed to show off, not to be comfortable.

She shut the drawer and went for a shower. Flicked water out of her hair when she stepped out. Stared at her reflection in the mirror, thin and drawn.

There were three ways to escape. The third was tucked away in the bathroom cabinet: a bottle of pills. Paracetamol. Probably not strong enough. Maybe if she swallowed them all… She picked up the bottle, unscrewed the lid.

This way led to oblivion. Blackness. She wouldn't have to feel the guilt of everything she'd done. She wouldn't have to come to terms with it. She'd close her eyes and it would all be over and the world would be a better place.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. _No. Please stop thinking this. Please stop._

She couldn't decide which was more cowardly: going through with it or not going through with it.

* * *

She missed a period.

Jessica didn't keep close track of her periods as a rule. Other than the general annoyance they caused, they were only noteworthy because Kilgrave was a fucking whiny baby who hated to go near her when she was menstruating.

She realised that she'd missed it about two weeks after the fact when she saw a commercial for a pregnancy test on the television. It set off a string of _oh fuck_ lightbulbs in her brain.

She was using protection. She was on the pill, Kilgrave had at least been sensible about that and compelled a pharmacist to supply her with all the contraceptive drugs she needed. Which was the least he could do since, again, he was a fucking whiny baby who refused to use any protection himself.

But still. Accidents happened. Maybe she'd forgotten to take the pill during a particularly bad hangover. Maybe she'd been too depressed to bother. She found herself running frantically back through her memories of the past few weeks, wondering if there was any possibility, any chance at all, that she had monumentally fucked up.

She had to check. But how to do that without telling Kilgrave?

They were watching TV. Or, to be precise, Kilgrave had switched channels to watch a rugby match while Jessica searched for passports online. She gave up her search and typed 'London drugstore' instead. Nearest pharmacy: an eight minute walk away.

She glanced at Kilgrave and swallowed. Damn. This couldn't be that hard. She put her phone down, folded her arms, and stared at the television for at least five minutes before she worked up the nerve to do something.

Act normal. Casual. She got up and walked over to the kitchen. Got a coffee mug out of the cupboard. Opened the fridge, stared at its contents. Her hands were clammy.

She walked back into the lounge and cleared her throat to get Kilgrave's attention.

"We've run out of milk," she told him, and she was sweating like that time she'd lied about accidentally breaking a toilet in her freshman year.

He barely turned his head. "Already?"

"Don't worry, I'll go get some. I'll be back soon."

Kilgrave looked at her and for a horrible moment she thought he was going to object or ask an awkward question. But then one of the players scored a try and his attention returned to the TV. He had the keen interest of a man who had never played but nonetheless considered himself an expert. Fine by her.

"Don't be long," he called as she grabbed some cash from his wallet.

She didn't look back.

* * *

She bought the pregnancy test and then walked into a department store to find a bathroom. Pee on a stick, wait for results. The three minutes she spent perched on the toilet seat were perhaps the longest in her life.

Three minutes.

What if she was pregnant? What would she do? She couldn't keep it, there was no question of that. Even the thought of keeping it made her want to throw up. She couldn't tell Kilgrave either; she had no idea how he'd react. Kilgrave had no interest in children; if anything, he despised them. He'd tell any children in his vicinity to shut up or go away or make their parents take them away rather than suffer their presence. He'd once literally stolen candy from a baby.

He'd make a terrible parent. And so would she.

Two minutes.

Her life was a mess. She couldn't bring up a child. Not with Kilgrave. Definitely not on her own. She stared at the pregnancy test stick, her heart thumping. She wasn't a responsible adult. She was barely a functioning human being. As if being stuck here wasn't bad enough, her fucking ovaries were conspiring against her.

One minute.

Maybe she could run. Get away from Kilgrave, pregnant or not. Did they have abortion clinics here? She googled it. Right, the NHS. Free state-sanctioned abortion, thank the fucking Lord. She wouldn't qualify for that though. She was an illegal immigrant, no paperwork. Could she get it done privately? Illegally?

She imagined a back alley doctor looming over her with a pair of shears.

No, that wasn't an option.

Could she flee back home and get it done there? She'd be a legal citizen; it had to be easier. But then she was back to the problem of how to return without Kilgrave.

More and more that third option was looking like the best solution. And that thought terrified her.

Time was up.

Jessica stared at the pregnancy stick with trembling fingers. Her vision was blurry; she took deep breaths and looked at it several times to confirm.

Negative result. She wasn't pregnant.

Her legs were jelly. She had to sit tight for a minute and let the relief wash over her. Disaster averted.

* * *

Unfortunately, she forgot to buy milk.

* * *

The match had finished by the time Jessica returned. Kilgrave wandered into the kitchen to greet her and his initial question was mild enough.

"I thought you went out for milk?"

She froze.

Jelly legs. Dry mouth. Her eyes must have been like saucers. She stared at Kilgrave and tried to say something, but all she could think was _oh shit, oh shit, oh shit_.

"Jessica?" A tiny frown. He took a step towards her. "Didn't you pop out for milk?"

"Yeah, I…" Shit. Fuck. She swallowed. "They didn't have any. I'll try again tomorrow."

He stared at her. "They didn't have any."

There was a disbelieving tone if ever she'd heard one. She assumed that convenience stores were beneath him, but even he had to know how unlikely this was. Jessica shrugged, affecting an air of nonchalance, and started to walk past him.

"Yeah, like I said. I'll pick some up tomorrow."

"Jessica." He stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Wait."

She stopped as if he'd compelled her and the next few seconds were like watching a car crash in slow motion. She'd been in a car crash and it hadn't been this agonising. Kilgrave walked over to the fridge. He opened the fridge door. He looked inside the fridge. He picked up the milk carton. He turned around and showed it to her.

Clearly, they had milk.

"I thought you said we'd run out."

His tone wasn't quite accusing, yet. More suspicious. She shrugged, the motion of the criminal caught in the act but denying it anyway.

"Sorry. Guess I didn't see it."

"You lied." He put the milk carton down on the counter and stared at her. "Where did you go?"

"I told you–"

"Jessica. Where did you go?"

She didn't have a ready answer. She stared at him, licked her lips. Her thoughts darted about. Doctor's appointment. Meeting a friend. Screwing James Bond. No, no. Something believable. Something non-threatening.

"I _said_ , where did you go? Answer me."

"I… went for a walk," she said lamely. "I needed some air."

"Were you meeting someone?" He advanced towards her as he spoke. "Is that why you lied to me? Did you sneak off to meet a friend? A quick blow job in the car park, was it?"

"No!" She shook her head. "Jesus, no."

He stopped in front of her and she had the horrible sensation of visibly shrinking under his gaze, like a wilting flower. He held out his hand. "Give me your phone."

"What?" Fuck. Alarm bells. She couldn't hide her reaction. "No! I told you, I went for a walk! There wasn't anyone else, I needed to be alone."

"Then why lie? Why the charade?"

"Because I knew you'd react like this!"

Their eyes were locked. A second stretched into eternity. The tension was electric.

"Then you should have thought about that before you did it. Give me your phone." She held her ground and his face twisted. He screamed at her: " _Give me your phone!_ "

"No!" Instinct kicked in: fight or flight. She shoved him with both hands, hard enough to send him flying back into the kitchen counter.

She flinched when he cried out in pain. Her hands trembled; she had so much pent-up rage. So much. She stared at him, breathing hard, and then the corners of her vision moved and flickered. Two women stepped into her field of view, behind Kilgrave. The cleaner and the cook. Jenny and Violet.

They each held a small knife pressed against their throats.

Jessica gasped, her throat reflexively convulsing. Fear and anger became horror in an instant. Her blood boiled. She couldn't move; she was transfixed. She couldn't take another breath.

Kilgrave straightened up, rubbing the back of his neck, and his eyes flashed in triumph. "Did you think I'd let you assault me for a third time, Jessica? Fool me twice, shame on me. I wasn't going to let it happen again. Stand down."

He… he was doing this to protect himself from _her_? Her stomach lurched. She stumbled back a step, shaking her head.

"You can't do this! This is our fight, they have nothing to do with it. Let them go."

He cocked his head at her. "Ask me."

"What?"

"Ask me."

She was slow and stupid. She couldn't think. "I want you to let them go."

"Then ask me nicely."

The points of the blades were digging into the women's flesh. Just a drop of blood. One drop, maybe two, running along that knife edge. Their faces were terrified. And Kilgrave was prolonging their suffering.

 _She_ was prolonging their suffering by not doing what he wanted.

"Let them go, _please_."

He smiled, glancing at the women behind him. "There, see. Finally a bit of respect. Good." He held out his hand. "Give me your phone."

She had no choice. She did as he said.

He spent about a minute searching before he found it. Checking her messages and emails, she guessed. Nothing incriminating there. But once he looked at her browser history…

Kilgrave looked up. "Abortion clinic. Jessica…"

"I'm not pregnant," she said, desperate. "The test results came out negative."

"So that's why you went out on your own? To find out if you were pregnant?"

She nodded mutely. She couldn't tell whether he was angry or not.

"I see," he said. "You could have told me."

"I didn't want to worry you."

"And if you had been pregnant, would you have said anything?"

"Yes! I don't have legal status, I would have needed your help to get rid of it. For God's sake, _please_ , tell them to stop."

Her voice shook. Jenny and Violet were trembling; she was afraid that they were going to accidentally cut themselves further.

Kilgrave exhaled. "Fine. You can stop. Back to normal duties."

He didn't look back at the two women as they lowered the knives and shuffled out of the room. She should have felt some semblance of relief but there was none: the noose was tight around her neck.

He'd never done that before. Used his powers against her. Threatened innocents. She couldn't believe that he'd go that far.

"What about me?" she asked, making the effort to meet his gaze. "Are we done?"

"I don't want you getting pregnant any more than you do, Jessica. If it happens again, you need to tell me. Let me help."

She nodded. She would have agreed to anything at that point. Anything to make it stop.

"I thought I could trust you." He shook his head. "I put my trust in you and this is how you repay me. We need to fix this and that starts with you. You're not to leave this house without me, do I make myself clear?"

She opened her mouth to object and then closed it again. Not now. Not when these women were still in danger; he could call them back at any point.

She nodded. "Yes."

"And you're not to contact anyone else without my permission."

"Okay."

"Good girl."

He tucked her phone into his pocket and ruffled her hair before sloping off back to the lounge.

* * *

It wasn't only the terrible things she'd done that killed her.

It was all the times he'd treated her badly or treated others badly, and she still kept crawling back.

* * *

She followed him like she didn't have anywhere else to go. She curled up with him on the couch and whispered that she was sorry and she let him tuck her hair behind her ear, nuzzle her cheek.

"My Jessica," he murmured. "Come here. I'll take care of you."

It was meant to be comforting. Part of her was comforted. It was always easier to give in to Kilgrave than to resist him, to let him love her, let him take care of everything. Another part of her disconnected. She watched herself from the outside, as if her life was a movie and the camera was panning over the scene. A pathetic wreck of a woman who had forgotten how to do anything for herself.

She was the strongest woman in the world and she was the weakest woman in the world. No mental fortitude. No emotional fortitude. She had a bad temper and a right hook and all she ever did was fuck things up.

She'd squandered every chance that had been given to her. She didn't deserve her powers. She didn't deserve anything.

 _I hate her_ , she thought, staring at the creature called Jessica Jones. _Why doesn't she fucking_ do _anything? Why did she let all this happen? What's wrong with her?_

What's wrong with her?

What's wrong with her?

What's wrong with her?


	9. he's not here, but he's always here

**ix. he's not here, but he's always here**

The nights were hers. After he'd fucked her and gone to sleep, she lay awake staring at the ceiling and collected her thoughts. She had space to think at night. He wasn't looming over her; she wasn't being smothered. She could think clearly.

She had to get out.

There was no one thing that led her to this decision. It wasn't a decision. It was a need. It was the aching suffocation of a fearful existence, the desperation of an animal in a cage. She'd seen cats in zoos pace around their enclosure over and over again, the same route every hour of every day. It was a compulsion.

She could get out of bed right now, get dressed, pick up her things and run. If he woke, she could clamp her hand over his mouth before he had the chance to bark out an order, gag him and tie him to the bed. He'd be helpless.

She could do all of those things.

Where her mind went blank, where she ran out of options, was in what to do next. If she couldn't get out of the country, then she'd be homeless in a strange land with no friends and no prospects. She'd have to steal to survive. She'd become one of those super-powered criminals that the superheroes took down. Or the police. Either way.

She had to get out.

* * *

"Does it ever bother you, taking away their free will?"

This after the mildest of encounters, ordering a taxi driver to drop them off back home without payment. Their clothes were dripping; they'd been caught out by a freak shower. He peeled off his jacket and looked at her.

"Free will's an illusion anyway. We all follow our impulses."

"Our own impulses." She watched him from the couch. "Not someone else's."

He gave her a look, unbuttoning his shirt before he came over to join her. He never talked about the ethics of his powers. She wasn't sure that he recognised there were any.

She was curled up in the corner, taking up as little space as possible. Wherever he went Kilgrave always seemed to take up the space. He occupied everywhere. He occupied the couch and reached over to her, brushing a damp strand of hair from her cheek.

"Why should it bother me?" he asked. "Does your power bother you?"

She didn't answer.

"No," he said. "Because your gift is nothing to be ashamed of. We don't apologise for our powers. We embrace them. We are who we are."

"I'm not," she said. "You are who you are, I get that. But I'm not me."

"What do you mean?"

His brow creased; he didn't understand. It didn't matter how many times she said it. She couldn't tell whether he literally couldn't comprehend that she had desires different from his own, or he simply chose to ignore them.

She took his hands, injecting as much pathos into her voice as she could. Appealing to his better nature, if he had one. "I want to go home. Please. I want to go back to New York."

"You are home. Home is with me."

"So come with me. London was only supposed to be a vacation. Please, Kilgrave, I'm begging you. Take me back to New York."

It took everything she had to use that word. To beg. Setting aside the last scrap of her dignity, if she had any left.

It didn't work.

He shook out of her grip and glowered at her. No. The answer was no. He couldn't believe she had the temerity to ask, after everything he'd done for her. He'd given her everything and she spat it back in his face. She was an ungrateful bitch. A sour, unappreciative, miserable cow. She ought to never speak of this again.

She let his anger wash over her. He was petty, childish; he lashed out, but he forgot quickly too.

She'd tried. Tried to do this the humane way. What happened next would all be on him.

* * *

First, she needed her phone back. She weighed up the options of asking for it with all the questions that would entail vs stealing it and the inevitable blowback if he found out.

She didn't feel up to asking, so stealing it was. Another betrayal of his trust. He kept it in the drawer of their bedside table and she snuck over to grab it while he slept, crouching on the floor to hide the light of the screen and type her illicit messages. The minutes ticked by in dreadful silence.

Kilgrave didn't snore. She wished he did.

She found someone willing to supply her with a fake passport. That took a week of clandestine communication, careful deletion of all messages, and the constant nagging fear that she was being conned. She had no way of knowing. She'd spoken to a stranger on the internet. Until she met them in person, she wouldn't know.

But she'd made up her mind. She was going to leave Kilgrave and never look back.

She had it all worked out. Her mystery supplier wanted six hundred pounds in exchange for the passport. Kilgrave always had some money in his wallet. Probably not the full amount, he didn't carry a lot of cash, but she'd take whatever he had and make up the rest from her own money. She figured she'd have to wait a day or two for the passport to be made, then she could book her flight to New York. She'd stay in a hostel or, hell, even sleep rough. She didn't care.

It was time to stage her escape.

He was in a good mood that night. He'd given her flowers.

"An English rose," he said, plucking one of the petals. He brushed the petal along her cheek and she smiled up at him, playing along. "Reminds me of you. Not the English part, obviously, but the colour of these petals is the colour of your lips. Of course, handling a rose is no easy task. It must be done with care."

"You think I need handling?"

"I think I want to handle you."

He moved his hand over her hip and despite herself, she shivered. He could be so loving, so full of affection. This was the Kilgrave she'd fallen for, the one who thought she was the most fascinating, most wonderful creature in the world. He was enthusiastic, passionate and generous. He loved life. In his best moments he made her love life too. She'd gotten to do and experience things she never would have done without the benefit of his mind control.

The same was true of all the experiences she'd rather forget.

She wished she'd had more moments like this. She wished she hadn't had any moments like this, so it would be easier to leave him.

She hadn't expected to hesitate, to feel torn about what she was about to do. But he kissed her and the look in his eyes was so tender that she nearly, nearly faltered.

She sat up, pulling away from him. "I need to go to the bathroom."

He let her go. He trusted her, despite everything he'd said and done; he was here with her, alone in their bedroom, and he wouldn't be able to stop her. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. His clothes were strewn on the carpet; she picked up one of his socks and a navy blue tie. Silk. In other circumstances he might have enjoyed this.

He looked at her in mild puzzlement when she turned back to him holding the sock and tie. The second he realised that something was up, he'd yell for help and that would be it. Her brain screamed at her. _Now!_

She pinned him down on the bed and shoved the sock in his mouth.

"Don't move!"

He choked and flailed, his eyes wide. She raised her fist as if to hit him and he froze. He stared at her with a look of utter, forlorn betrayal and she felt like the world had been yanked out from under her feet. Her eyes welled up.

No. No. She had to be strong.

"I'm sorry," she garbled, struggling to get the words out, and she flipped him over to tie his hands behind his back. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore. I can't live like this."

He was trying to spit out the sock. She'd hidden a roll of masking tape under the bed and she grabbed it now, shoving the sock back in his mouth before he could manage anything more than a muffled yell. She taped his mouth and then used another of his ties to secure him to the bed, adding more masking tape around his wrists and to the headboard for good measure.

Once he was restrained, she stepped back to take one last look at him. Wiped away her tears. Took a deep breath.

"Don't try to stop me. Don't contact me ever again."

She took his wallet and ran.

* * *

She'd arranged to meet her mystery passport forger at Marylebone Station. Jessica got there early and went to an ATM machine to withdraw some cash. She'd counted Kilgrave's money. One hundred and eighty nine pounds. Not as much as she'd hoped.

She opened her own wallet, fumbled around. Her stomach dropped.

Her credit card was missing.

She searched again, looking in every compartment, taking out all the cards and receipts and junk, but she hadn't missed it. It wasn't there.

Had Kilgrave stolen it? How? When? She hadn't used her credit card in ages. Maybe she'd lost it and hadn't noticed. God, she was dumb. She should have checked. She should have made sure of all that before she left Kilgrave, but she'd only had one thing on her mind: the urge to get out.

Focus. She had to focus.

Her debit card was still there, thank God. She tried to withdraw five hundred pounds, the maximum amount, and the machine denied her.

"What?" she muttered.

She tried again. No luck.

Her hands were clammy. She pressed a different button, the button that displayed her balance.

Minus eighty six dollars.

Her chest went tight. Her throat went tight. She stared at the number, blinked several times to clear the haze from her eyes, but it didn't change.

She was eighty six dollars in the red. She'd gone into overdraft. Debt. And the bank would keep charging her interest for every day she had a negative number in her account.

People were walking around the station, hurrying to catch their next train, saying goodbye to their friends. They were all mist. The world had shrunk: there was Jessica, standing in front of the ATM machine, and this was all she had. A rucksack, a cell phone, a wallet containing one hundred and eighty nine pounds and no money in her account. That was it.

She couldn't afford the fake passport. She couldn't afford a one-way ticket to New York. She had enough cash to survive for… she didn't know how long, maybe a couple of nights, maybe a week. Depending on where she slept.

Maybe it was time to rob that bank.

She made her way over to the café where she had agreed to meet the passport forger, trying to breathe normally.

The time was 10pm. The agreed time. Jessica looked around, scanning the station. It wasn't busy but it wasn't dead either; the trains were still running.

Nothing. Five minutes went by. She tapped her foot against the table.

Ten minutes. She was tired, thirsty and hungry. She bought a bottle of water. It slid down her throat like cold slime.

Fifteen minutes. Her bum was sticking to the seat. She shifted, wiped her eyes and swallowed. He'd probably conned her. He probably wasn't going to turn up. She wouldn't have been able to pay him anyway.

The station was dead quiet now, just a few people heading for one of the far platforms where a train was waiting. The last customer had exited the café a couple of minutes ago to catch that train. She was the only one left, sitting at one of the outside tables.

Two police officers crossed the station wearing high visibility jackets. They were making their way in a diagonal roughly towards her. Jessica watched as one of them looked up, and then their strides lengthened and she realised with a dull horror that they were coming for her.

Fuck. She stood up, slinging her rucksack over her shoulder.

"Excuse me, ma'am."

That was a female police officer stepping forward first, well-built, her hair scraped tightly back. Everything about her screamed no-nonsense.

"Yeah?" Jessica hedged, her eyes darting around for an escape route. Two more police officers were approaching from the opposite side. Shit fuck. This was a trap. They'd set her up.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions. Could you step this way, please?"

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not yet. Step this way please, ma'am."

That didn't sound right. They didn't sound right. She'd expected handcuffs, a list of crimes. Jessica glanced again at the other two police officers who were closing in.

She made her decision.

Jessica stepped forward and shoved the female police officer into her colleague hard enough to send them both tumbling to the ground. Then she ran.

There were shouts behind her – "Oi!" – and footsteps slapping on the hard stone, but she didn't look back. She ran for the exit – no, there was a police car waiting on the street outside – she veered left instead. Ahead of her was the train waiting at the platform, engines rumbling. It started to move.

She leapt over the ticket barrier. The train was leaving. She ran faster, boots pelting on the ground, bag jolting at her shoulder. She chanced a half-glance behind her; three of the police officers were in pursuit but they'd lost ground, they weren't at the ticket barrier. She could lose them.

Onto the platform. She had almost reached the train; this was her only chance.

She took a running leap.

Her own momentum and the momentum of the moving train took her by surprise. She rolled rather than landed, nearly fell off and righted herself by flinging her hands down to grip the roof of the train, the wind rushing over her.

Distant shouts. The train was picking up speed; they wouldn't catch her.

She clung on, staying low as they moved through a tunnel and then they were out of the station and on the track heading out of London.

* * *

She jumped off a couple of miles down the track, landing on a banking full of nettles and trash, and then she crawled up and under a railway bridge where indecipherable graffiti had been scrawled, and caught her breath.

The police would probably try to catch her at the next platform or even stop and search the train. That was why she had to jump off. Her body didn't thank her for it: she had a sprained ankle, various cuts and bruises, and her hands stung horribly after falling straight into those nettles.

She looked at her phone screen, hands shaking. Twenty three percent battery left. Come on. She needed this. She flipped through the address book and paused, staring at a name.

One last lifeline.

One last reason not to rob a bank.

She called Trish.

* * *

"I'm sorry it took me so long."

There were tears in Trish's eyes. All the horror she'd heard and it was this that made her cry. The thought that she had let Jessica down.

"It's not your fault. I should have called you sooner."

"I should have known you were in trouble! You were gone for months, I…"

"I get it. You had your life, I took myself out of it."

There was a pause. Trish wiped her eyes and sniffed. Her mascara had gone blotchy; she didn't seem to notice. She looked up at Jessica.

"It was a month before I got you out. What did you do before I got there?"

Jessica grimaced. "What do you think?"

* * *

Practicalities first. She used her rucksack as a pillow and slept curled under that bridge until morning. Or tried to sleep. Her hands stung. Her ankle hurt. It was so horribly cold and uncomfortable that she could barely sleep at all. Paranoia kept her awake too: she kept expecting police dogs to come sniffing along the railway track, followed by the flashlights and shouts of the police.

None of that happened. She finally closed her eyes out of sheer exhaustion and when she woke the faint beginnings of daylight were trying to pierce through the clouds.

It was still freezing.

She discovered that she had company. A homeless man had wandered down underneath the bridge, muttering to himself and staring at the ground. She had enough light to see that she had slept next to several used needles.

She got up and fled.

It wasn't hard to orient herself once she got to a main road: she was still in the middle of London. The shops were opening and the first thing Jessica did was go into a pharmacy and buy herself some antiseptic cream and plasters to treat her injuries. Her ankle was swollen. She hoped it was only sprained and not broken; she could heal quickly from a sprain but she wasn't so sure about a break.

She bought coffee and drank it.

She went into a department store and used their bathroom. When she looked in the mirror she realised why the staff had given her funny looks: she looked awful. She looked like… well, like she'd slept rough. Or like she'd been in a traffic accident, since she was still limping.

Well, that wasn't so far off.

Once she'd made herself vaguely presentable, she left the store and walked around until she found an internet café where she could charge her phone. No messages. Not from Trish, not from Kilgrave. It was too early for Trish anyway; she couldn't expect to hear from her until the afternoon at the earliest.

Which meant she had several hours to kill.

She went to Greenwich.

No particular reason. Maybe because it was far away from Kilgrave. Maybe because there was a place called Greenwich in New York too. Of course they weren't the same. Not remotely. Greenwich's main point of interest was the Royal Observatory where there was a line in the ground to mark Greenwich Mean Time, GMT, the timezone of the UK and the zone from which all other zones were measured because of British colonialism or something. They'd put themselves in the middle of all the maps. With all the museums she'd visited, you'd think they owned geography.

Kilgrave had never taken her here. Maybe even he thought that a literal line in the ground wasn't actually all that interesting.

But she stood on the line nonetheless and looked down at the words carved into the pavement. Cities. Their relative positions to Greenwich, the centre of the world.

She was five hours ahead of New York. When Trish woke up, she would have one hell of a job to do.

How many miles to home? There was an entire ocean between herself and Trish. The earth was turning and Trish's side of it hadn't yet seen the sun; New York was in darkness. Here she couldn't see the sun either; it was hidden behind a sullen façade of dull grey cloud.

The rest of the city was like that. Dull, grey. She left the observatory and walked down to the town centre where she bought a mediocre sandwich from Gregg's. She sat down on a miserably tiny bench to eat it, a few splodges of rain hitting her shoulders.

Her phone buzzed.

Jessica froze. The bread stuck to the roof of her mouth and she chewed it carefully, her heart thundering. Was it Trish? Or was it _him_? She put the sandwich down and took deep breaths, forcing her jangling nerves to calm down. Pathetically, her hands trembled when she checked her phone.

The message was from Trish. _Jess, the transfer didn't go through. Don't know why. Has your account been locked? Can you check?_

Locked? How could her bank account be locked?

She was desperate enough to go into a bank and check. She hadn't set foot in one since… well, since before Kilgrave.

The woman at the counter stared at Jessica's clothes, the ones she'd slept in, at her lack of make-up, her dishevelled hair, and pursed her lips in a way that made it absolutely clear she was being judged.

But Jessica knew how to fake it. "Heeey," she said, smiling brightly. "So, God, this is like, so embarrassing, but I'm on vacation here and I totally underestimated my spending money. Dollars to pounds, you need more dollars than pounds, who knew, right?"

The woman was unimpressed. "Would you like to withdraw some cash?"

"Yeah, so, I tried, and it totally didn't work. Says I'm locked out of my account? I don't get it, do you think you could help?"

"Let's see your card."

She slid her debit card over the counter. The woman picked it up, squinted at it, and typed something on her computer.

Jessica watched, biting her lip.

"It looks like this account has been suspended," the woman finally said, looking askance at Jessica.

"Suspended? What does that mean?"

"You'd need to talk to your bank to activate it. I can't help."

"Can't you, like, unlock it for me?"

"Talk to your bank," the woman repeated with weary scorn. She slid the debit card back over to Jessica. "Thank you."

The way she said _thank you_ sounded more like _fuck off_. Jessica thought about objecting, but it obviously wasn't going to be worth it. The woman was right. She should talk to her bank. She'd have to call them. Which meant she'd have to get online to find a contact number.

One internet café, two hours and five phone calls later, she'd had no luck. She'd given them all the information they asked for and they'd still blown her off. Did they know she was being hunted by the police? Was that why her account had been suspended?

Like most multinational banks, hers had an office in London. They probably weren't interested in retail customers, but she didn't care, she'd run out of options.

She walked into their big glass building with her dirt-caked boots and was immediately stopped by security. Twenty minutes, one punch to a security guard's nose and a lot of shouting later, she ran the hell out of there pretty sure that they'd called the police too.

So that was a bust.

* * *

It was six o'clock in the evening.

She trudged into a café, a grimy one that sold fast food and weak coffee, and sat down on one of the plastic chairs, crossing her arms over the table. Sixty one percent charge left on her phone.

Kilgrave hadn't tried to contact her. It had been almost a full day. Granted, she'd tied him up and told him never to contact her again but she hadn't expected that to stop him. What was he doing? Was he behind this? Was he trying to stop her leaving the country?

A thin man in a suit walked past outside the window at the edges of her vision and Jessica jumped, heart in her mouth. Not him. Obviously. She was jumping at shadows.

She sent Trish a message. _I couldn't fix it. You'll have to come get me in person. Call me as soon as you can._

Then she slumped down at the table.

* * *

Forty four percent battery and one hundred and twenty nine pounds. She was in a youth hostel after pretty much begging to be given a room. It was grimy and smelt like sweaty students and weed, but she'd taken a shower and she had a bed for the night. Best she could do.

Trish called. "Jess, what happened?"

"I don't know. They wouldn't say."

She didn't mention that the police were after her. It would only worry Trish more.

"Do you think it was Kilgrave?"

"Maybe. Maybe I'm going crazy."

She was starting to wonder if there was such a person as Jessica Jones. The woman carrying that name was a fugitive. She didn't exist.

"Okay. Listen, Jess, we'll figure this out. Have you… have you considered going to the police?"

The irony. No, she hadn't considered it while she was running away from them.

"No," she said. "I can't go to the police. What the hell would I say? Do you think they'd believe that I was held against my will by a mind-controlling psychopath whose powers don't even work on me? I'm an illegal immigrant, they'd lock me up."

"Or they'd deport you. Ask them to deport you."

She caught her breath. She hadn't thought of that. Would they deport her? Could she ask them to do that? Send her back to New York, no questions asked…

"I don't know what they'll do," she said. "What if Kilgrave gets to them? I'm not safe in a jail cell, not if he knows I'm there. I can't risk it. Are you going to help me or not?"

"Of course I'll help you. But I'll be breaking the law. Smuggling you out of the country… That's going to take time and planning. It won't be easy."

"Fine! Whatever, I'll wait."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know, a hostel. Islington."

"Do you have enough money to survive for a few more days?"

No.

"Yes. Don't worry about me. Tell me when you need me at the airport and I'll be there."

"Okay."

She could hear the worry in that single word, picture the frown lines in Trish's forehead as her friend, her sister, paced around the apartment they had once shared. Jessica ended the call and slumped back on the tiny, creaking bed. She was leaving it all up to Trish. The fake passport, the flight tickets, everything.

And in the meantime she had to survive on one hundred and twenty nine pounds for… she didn't know how long. Maybe a week. Maybe more. Which meant she couldn't stay in the hostel. It was cheap, but not that cheap.

She still hadn't heard from Kilgrave.

* * *

It had been three days.

Maybe he hadn't been able to get free. Maybe he'd been tied to the bed long enough that his control over Jenny and Violet had worn off and they'd decided to wreak some revenge. She allowed herself to entertain that thought while the rain poured down in sheets outside and she tried to make her coffee last as long as possible. She was in a Starbucks. Starbucks was everywhere. Some things were just comforting like that.

Maybe he was dead.

She thought it, the words passed through her mind, but they had no impact. She didn't believe them. The police were after her and she couldn't get into her bank account. It had to be him.

Every time she got a message on her phone she thought it was him.

This time it wasn't. This time it was a message from her network provider. She'd failed to pay her bill for the month. If she didn't cough up the cash soon, her account would be suspended and she wouldn't be able to make or receive any calls or text messages or access the internet.

Fuck.

Why was everything so hard? Why did it have to be so hard? She was fucking homeless and fucking broke and if she didn't have a working cell phone she couldn't contact Trish and if she couldn't contact Trish she couldn't get out and she'd be trapped in this country forever.

She drained the last of her coffee, weak and lukewarm. Then she got up, walked out of the coffee house and headed for the nearest Tube station.

* * *

She went back to their apartment.

It was late evening, almost eight. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't shaking. Not on the outside, maybe, but inside she was a quivering mess. She spent nearly a minute staring at the door, trying to work up her courage, ignoring the voices screaming in her head that it wasn't worth it, she should run away, get out while she still could…

She tried the door. Locked. She didn't have a key; Kilgrave had never bothered to give her one and she hadn't taken his with her.

Locks didn't mean much to Jessica Jones.

She forced her way in, shoulder slam on the door and hey presto. Who needed mind control? She stepped in. Swallowed. It was dark… empty? She flicked on a light and looked around. Same furniture, same couch, same kitchen. There was an empty wine glass on the sideboard.

"Kilgrave?" she called. "Jenny? Violet?"

Nothing. Her heart was palpitating. With a growing sense of dread, she went on through to the bedroom, the place she had seen him last. She switched on the light and waited a second for her eyes to adjust.

Nothing.

The bed was empty, unmade. The pieces of masking tape she had used to restrain him were there too, on the mattress, like they'd been ripped off and left there. No clothes. She checked the wardrobe: it was empty. Checked the bathroom. Same.

No sign of Kilgrave. He'd bailed.

Jessica let out the breath she had been holding and sat down on the bed, her head spinning. What was he thinking? Where had he gone? Why hadn't he tried to contact her?

She returned to the lounge and shut the door to the apartment, using the masking tape to hold the broken lock. The place was empty; she might as well use it. Didn't seem like Kilgrave had any intention of coming back.

She was dead tired, the kind of tired that could only come after three days of her nerves fraying at the edges, three days of stress and terror and despair, three days of looking over her shoulder at every street corner, flinching every time she saw a well-dressed man with brown hair, waiting for an escape that didn't come.

Waiting to escape was the worst. She'd rather do it; she'd rather go straight to the airport and get on that plane, get it over with. Instead she was stuck in a holding pattern. Back where she'd started. She hadn't gotten anywhere at all.

Jessica swiped the pieces of masking tape off the bed, took off her clothes, crawled under the covers, and slept.

* * *

She woke up early and nervous and she didn't know why.

Jessica sat up. Something pricked at her senses; a waft of air. Movement.

Someone was here.

She got out of bed, moving slowly and carefully to avoid making a noise. Her heart was racing. Her mouth was dry. She pulled on her jeans and vest top and readied herself to step out of the bedroom, fists raised.

She opened the door. The hallway was empty. She moved down the hallway, slow, deliberate. Was someone there? Had she imagined it?

She reached the lounge.

There she stopped. Froze. The place was empty still; that wine glass was still there.

But the door to the apartment was wide open.


	10. turns out they really are out to get me

**x. turns out they really are out to get me**

She ran to the door and looked up and down the hallway. Nothing. No one. She stayed there hovering in the doorway for several seconds, trying to calm her breathing, trying to think. Maybe whoever it was had gone.

Or maybe they were still in the apartment.

She did a thorough sweep. Searched all the rooms, the closets, under the bed, every possible hiding place. Nothing. No one.

No. There was something. Tucked underneath the empty wine glass: a slip of paper. Had it been there before? She didn't think so. It was ordinary notepaper, a scrap torn from a notebook and folded in two. She unfolded it.

 _If you wish to return._

The words were handwritten in blue ink, followed by an address in central London.

She stared.

It was Kilgrave, wasn't it? It had to be. Trish wouldn't bother with this bullshit; she'd contact Jessica directly. She thought of the missing passport forger but she'd never told him where she lived. By process of elimination it had to be Kilgrave, but why the charade? Why not call her?

She didn't recognise the address. Jessica bit her lip. To go or not to go… She sat down at the dining table and examined the note again, searching for any tiny detail, any clue. It wasn't Kilgrave's handwriting. It was a man's, she guessed, judging by the style.

It was an invitation.

She had to choose to take that next step, to go to him rather than wait for him to contact her. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was all a bullshit power play.

But she didn't really have a choice, did she? What else could she do? Where else could she go?

* * *

Trish held her head in her hands. "Please tell me you didn't go back to him."

* * *

Yeah. Funny story.

The address on the note turned out to be a French restaurant that he had taken her to before. She recognised it when she got there. But the note hadn't given a time or even a date. What was she supposed to do, go in and wait?

Jessica stopped outside and looked through the window at the restaurant interior. It was quiet, too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.

She went in and asked for Kilgrave. The staff seemed to know exactly what to do.

"This way," the waiter told her, and showed her to an upstairs table with a view over the Thames.

She took the offered seat. She was given an appetiser: garlic bread dipped in olive oil, a selection of breadsticks. She waited.

She waited for forty eight minutes.

It wasn't forty eight minutes of boredom. She was bored, but in the background, a sort of white noise in her mind and body. It was forty eight minutes of an emotional journey that ran something like this:

Fear. Anxiety. Doubts about whether she was doing the right thing. The urge to run away. Anxiety over whether it was him or whether she was being tricked or conned somehow. Was it a trick? Was something horrible going to happen? Was she about to be cornered by men in black clothes and black masks, kidnapped and imprisoned, sold off like a prize horse? It had nearly happened once. It could happen again.

Then she got angry. It was Kilgrave, it had to be Kilgrave. Why was he taking so long? Why was he playing this game? He was doing it on purpose, torturing her as some sort of punishment for daring to leave. She ought to get her hands around his neck and squeeze until he turned as purple as his fucking suits. Prick.

He still wasn't here. The worry spread, strangling her anger, choking it. She had to play it safe. Play it smart. Get what she wanted from him and then get the hell out.

If he'd let her.

By the time he did turn up, she was so lost in her anxiety that she didn't see him arrive. The first she knew was the soft rustling of the table cloth as he took the seat opposite her, and the sound of his voice.

That voice set her nerves on fire.

"So you came."

Her hands balled into fists beneath the table, fingernails digging into her skin. "You're late."

"I didn't know when you'd turn up. You look like you've been through the wars."

She looked at him then, at him looking her up and down. He was exactly the same. His fucking eyes. They'd always been cold, hadn't they? She looked at those eyes, that thin cruel mouth, that sharp face, and it was like having double vision. She saw a man of passion, loving, generous, a man who even now she felt drawn to, like an insect crawling into a Venus fly trap. And she saw a monster, a psychopath with no empathy and no remorse, a fucking leech.

"What was with the cryptic bullshit? The note? Why didn't you call?"

"Well, if you remember, you told me never to contact you again. I respected your decision."

"You _respected_ my decision?"

She was seething. She was spitting venom.

"Yes," he said. "That's why I left the note. I left it up to you. Do you want to tell me what happened? Why did you come back?"

"I think you know."

"Well, I hope it's because you've come to your senses. You realised that we're meant to be together. You missed me."

"It's because I ran out of money, you piece of shit. You suspended my bank account."

"I… what?"

He looked confused and that stopped her in her tracks. She opened her mouth, closed it again. No. He was a liar. He was a fucking liar.

"You took my credit card. You froze my account. I've got jack shit left thanks to you and I want it back."

"I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about."

It took all her self-control not to reach across the table and brain him with a stick of garlic bread.

"Bullshit! Then who else was it? You're the only one who didn't want me to leave. You've been keeping me prisoner here for months–"

To her shame, her voice cracked. It was too much. She couldn't stand him being so composed. She'd expected him to be angry, vengeful even. The last thing she needed was him pretending to be kind.

"Calm down, Jessica." He reached out across the table to caress her hand and she flinched away. "Don't cry. I can tell you've had an emotional few days. God knows I have too, wondering where the hell you were. Clearly we have a lot to talk about, so how about we order some food and take it slow, bit by bit, okay?"

"…Okay."

He settled down in his seat. "Okay."

She didn't mean to tell him everything. She started only with the thing she cared about most: the money.

"So," he summarised, "you tried and failed to withdraw five hundred pounds from an empty account and then a day later you discovered that your account was frozen. Forgive me, Jessica, I don't have many dealings with banks, but doesn't that sound like standard protocol? No one knows you're in the UK. It would have looked like fraudulent activity."

Oh.

Oh, God. That sounded plausible. She hadn't touched her account in months. If her bank had flagged the activity as suspicious…

"They should have called," she said. "I called them and they wouldn't help."

"Called them from a cell phone in the UK, I presume."

"No, there was something else going on…"

She bit her lip. Jessica had never dealt with identity fraud before. She didn't know what the normal procedure was.

Kilgrave shrugged. "I'm speculating. But I didn't touch your account. I promise you that."

So he couldn't help her. Or at least not in the way she'd wanted. She didn't know what to say; she stared at her empty plate with tears in her eyes and she felt pathetic again, like a lost child. She hated relying on others. Hated it, and yet she'd been doing it for months, was still doing it…

The waiter came over to serve their lunch and Jessica sniffed, wiping her eyes. Another date with Kilgrave.

"My credit card," she said. "It was missing; you stole it."

He shook his head. "I borrowed it to buy a Netflix subscription, remember? You buy online stuff, I buy everything else?"

…Yes, they had talked about that. "So you borrowed it and never returned it. Same thing."

"I forgot to return it. Not a big deal since we were living together. I didn't know you'd run off, did I? Think about it. If I'd wanted to cut off your money, I'd have taken your debit card too."

He sounded reasonable. She hated how reasonable he sounded.

"Or maybe you didn't need to, since you cleaned out my account."

"Did I? When did I do that?"

She didn't know. Christ, she didn't know. She had no answer and so stabbed her fork viciously into her steak instead.

"Then what about the police?" she asked, desperate to find something to pin on him. "You sent the police after me."

"The police?"

"They tried to arrest me. I ran. You sent them after me, you hunted me down."

He reached over for a piece of garlic bread and shook his head, amazed. "God, Jessica, you really are paranoid. I didn't send the police after you either. You know I would never do that. I don't want the attention."

"Then how did they find me? How did they know?"

"I don't know, were you doing anything illegal at the time?"

Again, she bit her lip. Fuck, all her assumptions were unravelling. She had been doing something illegal at the time. Or, well, she'd been planning to meet someone to discuss an illegal activity. But how had they known?

"I was trying to buy a fake passport," she muttered. "The guy I ordered it from didn't show up."

"I see. So you really were trying to run away."

He looked displeased. It was the first sign of displeasure she'd seen.

"I tried," she said. "And your shitty minions tried to stop me."

"They weren't my minions and I don't have to speculate for this one. I can tell you exactly what happened, because the police came to me too."

She put down her wine glass and stared at him. "What?"

"Yeah," he said grimly. "Banged at the door and everything, they gave poor Jenny and Violet such a fright. Found me starkers tied to the bed with masking tape. Imagine trying to explain that one, even with mind control."

She swallowed. "What did you do?"

"Found out why they were there. Turns out your passport forging friend has been under the eye of the police for a while and they chose your rendezvous to intercept him. They arrested him before he got to you and they tried to bring you in for questioning too, but you ran away. They traced you back to our flat, which is why they decided to pay me a visit. They were hoping to find you."

"So you knew."

She whispered it more to herself than to him. He knew about the police. He knew that she'd tried to obtain a passport. He'd just been waiting for her to admit it.

"Admirable work on their part," Kilgrave went on. "Showed a real commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration. But I think you caused quite a stir. Why would an American citizen try to sneak into the UK? Then they saw your little escapade with the train… Oof. You caused all sorts of conspiracy theories there. Don't worry about them coming after you by the way. I took care of that."

Her head snapped up. "How? By… by killing them?"

"No, don't be stupid. I told them to close the case. I can't guarantee that some enterprising soul won't remember what happened and reopen it, of course, but these are garden variety plods we're talking about. Easier for them to keep their heads down. That said, the incident did force me to move. Had to make sure the trail went cold."

"So that's why you left the apartment."

He was making sense. She hated to admit it, but everything he was saying made sense.

Kilgrave sipped his wine and nodded. "I left, but I had someone keep an eye on it in case you came back. I was going mad trying to find you. I'm sure you can imagine how worried I was. Thinking of you out there on your own, with no one to turn to… It was unbearable."

She wished he wouldn't say things like that. It made it sound like he cared. Jessica cut the last piece of steak on her plate and shoved it into her mouth. She hadn't wanted to admit this either, but she'd been ravenous. She'd eaten nothing but cheap junk food for the past few days. Living with Kilgrave had spoiled her.

"Well," said Kilgrave, looking at her. "Aren't you going to say something? Are you glad to be back?"

His eyes were dark. God, she… she didn't know. She'd come here to make him unfreeze her bank account and now she didn't even know if he could do that.

She looked away. "I… Shit. This is hard."

"What?"

"I shouldn't have come here." She stood up, pushing her chair back. "This is a waste of my time."

"Wait." He stood up too and caught her arm. "Don't go. There's something I need to tell you."

Her jaw set. "What?"

"Not here," he said. "Come with me. Let's talk in private."

"What, and have you kidnap me again?"

"I never kidnapped you." He looked pained. "God, Jessica, don't say that, I would never do that. Clearly I can't keep you anywhere you don't want to be. The last few days prove that. Come with me, please. It's important. This will change things."

He took a step closer and his hand found hers, their fingers interlocking. She wanted to pull away. She wanted to remind herself that he was a psychopath and a fucking leech, but…

"Change things how?"

What was it? What wasn't he telling her?

"Please come with me," he said. "It'll all make sense, I promise. And if you don't like what I have to say, if it doesn't change your mind, you can leave. I won't stop you. But you need to hear this."

Decisions, decisions. She stared at him. Her mouth wobbled. If she left him now she'd be in no better a position than she had been before. She'd have to live on the streets or resort to a life of crime until Trish came for her.

If Trish came for her.

Goddammit.

* * *

His new apartment was as fancy as the old. Well, she said 'his'. It wasn't. A middle-aged couple were waiting for them when they arrived, standing quietly in a corner of the kitchen.

"Oh, they own the place," Kilgrave said when she asked who they were. "I'm a house guest, you see. Temporary. Was in a bit of a rush."

She didn't have the energy to question him further. "I need a shower," she said, and he didn't protest.

She spent longer than usual beneath the hot water, letting it stream down her skin, drown out her thoughts. The thoughts crowded in anyway. Questions, doubts. She'd hear him out, she decided. It was probably some bullshit about how much he loved her. Didn't matter. She could even stay. Stay until Trish arrived at the airport and not a minute beyond. Kilgrave had said it himself. He couldn't stop her from leaving if she really wanted to.

She emerged wearing a bathrobe and with her hair still damp, because she'd resigned herself to staying at least one night already. Kilgrave didn't protest that either.

He was sprawled on the plush white couch with his legs crossed, waiting for her to join him. She took a seat on the pouffe by the window.

"So," she said. "What do you have to say?"

He cleared his throat. "Jessica… I'm sorry. I have to make a confession. I haven't been entirely honest with you."

"What?"

"Listen. Hear me out. Do you remember when we were kidnapped by those two men from IGH? Well, I learned something else that day. Something I didn't tell you. IGH have known about you for a long time. They've been tracking you. Monitoring you."

She'd gone still the moment he mentioned IGH. Monitoring her? How? What for? She stared at Kilgrave.

"Why?"

"I suppose because in their eyes you're still a lab rat. You just have a bigger maze."

It took a second or two for the implication of that to sink in.

She was still an experiment.

She might not be in a lab, but that didn't matter. Scientists conducted experiments out in the field too. She was a free range chicken, allowed to scratch around in the yard and find her own food, better off than those chickens locked up in the coop, but still… They all got chopped up in the end.

That might have been a terrible metaphor. She didn't know what she was being studied _for_.

And Kilgrave had been sitting on this information… why?

Her eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know what they wanted. I needed to find out if you were in danger and I needed to protect you from it. At first they were only watching you. But before Christmas, their intentions changed. They were in danger of being exposed and they decided to wipe out the evidence of their illegal experiments."

"Wipe out the evidence how?"

He looked serious. Jessica shifted, tucking her legs beneath her so that she could lean in and listen more closely. She sensed that this was the crunch point.

"By killing you," he said. "They were going to kill you, Jess. I got you out from under their noses."

Oh.

He'd said that his news would change things. Suddenly she realised what that meant. If IGH were coming after her… If they wanted to kill her, then did that mean… Had he kept her safe? Was that why he had brought her here?

It seemed impossible. It seemed too big to be true.

"How do you know all this?"

"Remember Marco, our driver? I didn't send him off to die. I sent him back to IGH and he's been working as a mole for me ever since."

He was right. This changed everything.

It changed everything… if it was true.

She only had Kilgrave's word to go on. She thought back to the last few months, to before Christmas. She'd seen no evidence of anything he'd described. No secretive phone calls, no texts. Kilgrave hadn't gone off to meet anyone without telling her. She'd never felt like he was worried about her or on the lookout for danger. He'd gone through life like he always did: with a swagger.

"Is this true?" she asked. "Are you lying to me right now?"

"It's true, I swear it." He shook his head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I should have done; I won't make that mistake again. But that's why I'm telling you now. You have to understand, if you go back to New York, if you go back to our apartment or back to Trish, they'll find you. They'll find you and they'll kill you."

"So I can't go back," she said. Convenient.

"I wouldn't advise it, no."

The question was, could she risk not taking him seriously? Even if she didn't believe him – and she had her doubts – what if it was true? What if she put Trish in danger?

She couldn't sit still. Not with all this new information to process. It was too much. She got up and paced around, back and forth, back and forth. What if it was true?

All this time she'd thought that Kilgrave was trying to control her. What if he'd been trying to protect her?

He'd gone about it in a stupid, bull-headed way of course. He should have told her from the start. They could have done something.

She ran her hands distractedly through her hair, thinking, thinking… Then she turned on Kilgrave.

"Let's say I believe you," she said. "You knew all that and you chose to run away. That's your answer? You made that decision for me and you didn't even tell me why. What if I wanted to fight? What if we could stop them? You have your mole, shut them down! Shut it all down."

He shook his head. "I can do a lot of things, Jessica, but taking down a shadowy corporate organisation isn't one of them. That's the thing about shadowy corporate organisations. They work behind the scenes. You don't know who they are. And they know about me. They'd see me coming."

"How do you know they haven't followed us here?"

"You're alive, aren't you?"

She didn't have an answer for that.

Kilgrave leaned forward, his eyes beseeching. "You understand now. You understand why I wanted you to stay."

She nodded slowly. Yes. Yes, she did.

"Will you stay?"

Jessica hesitated. In truth she'd already made her mind up. There was only one possible answer.

"Yeah. I'll stay."

His grin lit up his whole face; he looked as if he might leap up and punch the air. "I knew you would. Thank you. You've made me a very happy man."

"Yeah," she said, apparently unable to answer in anything other than monosyllables.

"I promise I'll protect you," he went on. "You don't have to run from anyone. Come here, Jessica. Give me a kiss."

She sensed the command for what it was: a test. She supposed she couldn't blame him. Jessica held his gaze for a moment and then approached him, crossing the space between them to lean down and kiss him softly on the cheek. She pulled away. They looked at each other. There was still that _something_ – that frisson between them.

Slowly, deliberately, keeping her eyes fixed on his, she climbed into his lap. His eyes widened. She leaned in to kiss him again, on the mouth this time, and when he sighed into her lips she knew she had him.

He'd forgiven her.

* * *

Trish was aghast. "You had sex with him _again_?"

"That's not even the worst part. The worst part is that the couple who owned the apartment were still there. He made them turn their backs, but they heard everything."

"Okay," said Trish. "You know, there are some parts of this story I don't need to know."

She shook her head. "No, you do. I have to tell you everything. I have to get it out. Because that wasn't the worst part."

* * *

She lay tucked in bed with him, safe and warm, and she shouldn't have felt this way but she was relieved. The last few days had been a nightmare. With Kilgrave she was safe. Protected. There were no cops after her. No mysterious men out to get her. She knew what she was dealing with.

His fingers brushed over her hip. "Jessica… There's one more thing we need to discuss."

Her heart leapt into her mouth. She turned to face him. "What?"

"You ran away. You tied me up and ran away." His expression hardened. "That can't happen again."

She'd been waiting for this. She had an answer prepared.

"It won't," she said. "I didn't know. I didn't know about IGH. I missed New York."

"You shouldn't have done it."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Their eyes met and she wondered if he bought it. She wasn't sure whether she was telling the truth herself.

Did she believe him? Did he believe her?

"Kilgrave." She brought her hand up to his jaw, caressed his face. "I came back, didn't I? I said that I'd stay. Believe me when I say that I'll stay."

"Promise me." His hand settled over hers. "Promise me that you'll stay."

She exhaled. "I promise."


	11. you should have gotten there sooner

**xi. you should have gotten there sooner**

She thought that he'd forgiven her but he certainly hadn't forgotten. The next morning she unpacked her bag, pitiful as it was, and found her wallet, cell phone and charger missing.

"Contingency," he said when she confronted him about it. "Don't run off again."

He'd taken back his wallet too, but she'd expected that. She hadn't expected him to take her things.

She supposed now wasn't the time to ask for her credit card back.

"Can I have my phone?"

Stupid question.

"What for? Calling Trish?"

She blanched. It was an involuntary reaction; it gave the game away. "How do you know about that?"

"Got a missed call. I didn't think you two had stayed in touch." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and walked over to open one of the desk drawers, taking out her phone. "Let me guess. You ran out of money, so you asked dear old Patsy for help. That's why you panicked when your account was frozen. She couldn't transfer you the money, so why would she be calling you now?"

Jessica licked her lips. She was looking at the phone in his hand, wondering whether to snatch it…

"I don't know," she said.

"I think you do. Be truthful now, Jessica. I'll know if you're not."

It was infuriating. He was holding the phone inches away from her. She could walk over, punch him, and grab it. But she didn't know where her other things were. And she was in the same position as before: no money, nowhere to go. He had her by the shorthairs and he knew it.

"She was gonna help me," Jessica said finally. "I asked her to get me to New York. Let me call her. I'll tell her to stop."

"You'll have to make it convincing."

Kilgrave wasn't completely ignorant of what Trish was like, then. He hadn't underestimated her.

"I can be convincing," she said.

He gave her a long, hard look. "How?"

She had to think about it. Not mull it over for a few seconds, but really think about it, plan every line of what she was going to say. They had several hours until it was daytime in New York. She thought about it long and hard.

"Trish, hi."

She was sitting at the dining room table with her messy, handwritten script crumpled in front of her. Kilgrave was there at her ear, listening to every word. He'd read and checked her script too. No secrets.

"Jess! Jess, are you all right? I wanted to give you an update on my progress with–"

"No need," she interrupted. "I don't need your help anymore."

There was a short pause. "What do you mean? What happened? Did you get out?"

"Yeah, I did get out. I got out from under you. Look, I got drunk and had a moment of weakness. I panicked and that's why I called. But then I remembered what a dumb psychotic bitch you really are."

"Jess, what–"

Trish sounded distraught. Of course she did. Jessica fought to keep her voice from shaking. She ploughed on.

"You know, I hated every second of living with you. I thought about going back, being suffocated by your insane expectations and your pathetic jealousy, and even the thought of it makes me want to throw up. I'd rather live with Kilgrave. I'd rather live in a fucking dumpster than go back to you."

"You're lying." Trish's voice cut over her. "This is Kilgrave. He's making you say this, I know he is–"

Kilgrave gave her a look and she shook her head at him.

"Kilgrave isn't making me say anything. He isn't here. I'm here on my own saying that I'd rather be on my own than have to speak another word to you ever again. Do you hear me, Trish? I don't need your help. I don't want your help. I never did. Don't call me. Don't text me. I never want to hear from you again."

"Jess–"

Trish's voice crackled as Jessica ended the call. She put the phone down on the table and stared at it, her heart racing. _Don't call back, Trish. Take the hint._

The phone was silent.

"Good," said Kilgrave, patting her shoulder. "Bridges properly burnt there. Well done."

He tucked her phone into his pocket and walked away, leaving her silent and alone.

* * *

"I didn't believe it," Trish said. "Not for one second."

Jessica smiled. "I know."

* * *

He'd been saying that their current accommodation was temporary. A few days later she realised why.

"I think we need to get out of London," he said. "Too much baggage."

She wondered if he really had anything to worry about or if he was being paranoid. He'd said that IGH hadn't found them here, or so he believed. Maybe he was worried about the police. Maybe he didn't quite believe that she'd gotten rid of Trish.

They got on a train.

That in itself was unusual. He never used public transport. He held her hand tightly as they walked through the station and she caught him casting this way and that after they boarded. Maybe he was looking for a seat. But his shoulders were tense, his mouth drawn into a thin line.

He looked up before they entered the first class carriage, frowning at one of the signs on the wall. Jessica followed his gaze.

The sign said: _Smile. You're on camera._

What was he so afraid of?

They took a table seat, Kilgrave sitting opposite her, and Jessica gave him a calculating look as the train engines rumbled into life.

"Where are we going?"

"Oxford," he said.

She had only the vaguest idea of where that was in relation to London. It was still south, wasn't it? She'd worried that he was going to take her as far away from the city as possible, or even out of the country.

"So why don't we drive there?"

"Train's quicker," he said. "And less conspicuous. I don't want anyone remembering us."

"You're worried we might be followed," she guessed. "You think the police are still after us?"

"I think they might be after you. Bloody cameras everywhere in London. They'll have footage, you know, of your silly stunt at Marylebone. I told them to erase everything they could, but all it takes is one digital copy…"

The train manager was coming down the aisle to inspect their tickets and Kilgrave fell silent, looking away. She thought about it. She'd learned one thing about Kilgrave in the last few weeks that she hadn't known before: his instinctive reaction to danger was to run away. Or rather, that was his instinctive reaction to danger that he couldn't control. He normally didn't have that problem; he could command any threat to neutralize itself or worse.

He was vulnerable to remote threats. People monitoring them from afar. People tracking them down without his knowledge.

Maybe the police had that kind of resource. Maybe he was right to be worried. And if he was right about the police, if he was right about IGH… She was in danger too.

The train manager moved on, easily fobbed off by Kilgrave.

Jessica looked up at him. "I've been thinking."

"A dangerous pastime," he said drily.

"I think we should go after IGH."

"What?"

"You gave me those files." She still had them, tucked away in her bag. He hadn't bothered to take them. "You said we could talk about it. I decided not to investigate back then but now I've changed my mind."

"IGH are based in the US," he said. "You're safe here. Why poke at a hornets' nest?"

"Because I don't want to live looking over my shoulder. That's how you live, isn't it? You think you're carefree but you're not. You never let anyone take pictures of you. You never stay in one place for more than a few months. You're just so damn afraid that one day someone is gonna get the better of you."

"No, I'm not."

He denied it, but he looked annoyed. Maybe she'd struck a nerve. Jessica leaned forward, pressing her point.

"You know your power has limits. Your mind control wears off. People remember what you did to them. How long before one of them comes after you?"

"Not long at all if you go after IGH."

"Then help me. Come with me. We can fight them together."

He stared at her. Then he sighed, a deep, heartfelt sigh. "You're not gonna let this one go, are you? Okay. Let's not do anything stupid. I'll contact Marco and ask him to give me a report. We'll find out what the situation is right now and then we'll decide what to do. Okay?"

It was the closest he'd come to capitulating in a long time. She had to take what she could get.

Jessica nodded. "Okay."

* * *

Meanwhile, there was Oxford.

The train had only taken an hour, so they weren't that far away. That was a relief. They got a cab to the high street and stopped off at a café. Across the street she could see one of the colleges, old and grand, and if she'd ever thought about it she would have imagined scholars in black gowns and caps hurrying across the grounds with piles of books but there was none of that. Mostly there were people taking pictures.

"You'll love it," said Kilgrave, seeing where she was looking. "I used to live in Oxford. Full of students and tourists, but the architecture's outstanding. I'll take you around all the colleges. You'll feel like you've walked straight into Harry Potter."

"You used to live here?" she asked. That was the only thing he'd said that piqued her interest. "When?"

"Oh, must have been over a decade ago. I was twenty two, twenty three? It was great."

A waitress in a black miniskirt and leggings came over with their coffees and Kilgrave winked at her when she departed. She couldn't have been older than twenty. Suddenly Jessica thought of the other waitress they'd encountered in New York, the one who had recognised Kilgrave. She'd been terrified.

What did people think of Kilgrave after he'd mind controlled them? What did they remember? Did they realise what had happened to them? She assumed so, but she didn't know. She'd never had the chance to ask.

She warmed her hands around her coffee cup. "So did you con your way into studying here?"

"Nah, where's the fun in that? I did con my way into a lot of college parties. God, those girls knew how to have fun."

He glanced over at the college entrance, smiling slightly as he reminisced. She was starting to get a sick feeling in her stomach about the picture he was painting. But she wanted to know. This was him, this was the real Kilgrave. She ought to know.

"So what, was this your one night stand phase? Sleeping with college girls?"

"Don't know if I'd call it a phase. More like a lifestyle."

She didn't know if he was feeling nostalgic or whatever but he was talking more about his past than he ever had done before. He was far more relaxed too, probably because he thought they were out of danger.

She stirred her coffee. "Did you ever sleep with men?"

"No." The question didn't offend him. He frowned a moment, then shook his head. "No, wait, I tell a lie. I think I experimented once, years ago. Didn't much like it, so it's been girls ever since."

"How many?"

He looked at her, brow creasing. "Dunno. I don't keep count."

"Did you compel them?"

"To do what?"

"To sleep with you. To be with you."

The thought had preyed on her mind ever since… ever since what had happened in London. He wasn't a sexual threat to men, she believed him on that. But to women…

"Well, I'm naturally irresistible." He grinned at her. "You know that, Jessica. I didn't need mind control to seduce you."

She rolled her eyes. "You really think every woman falls at your feet?"

"I know they do."

"Someday I'm going to prove you wrong on that."

"You haven't yet."

This after she'd run away. His confidence was impossible to knock. She met his gaze and the smile he gave her was infuriating. It was the smile of a man who knew he'd always win.

* * *

He carried on as if nothing had happened, as if they'd fall back into their relationship without question. He showed her around several colleges like he'd promised, great old buildings and hidden gardens, even a deer park. Maybe he thought that if he left it long enough, she'd forget about IGH. She'd give up.

"So what about Marco?"

It had been three days. They'd heard nothing. The afternoon was crisp and cold and they were out in the University Parks walking by the duck pond. She'd only had to stop Kilgrave from ordering a group of students to throw themselves in the river once. All in all, he was in a reasonable mood.

Kilgrave shook his head. "I don't think he's going to reply."

He was looking at his phone and she itched to grab it from him. "You think something happened to him?"

"Maybe. If he has been compromised, we definitely shouldn't go back."

"Well, what else do you know? You've been in contact with him for months, he must have told you something before he disappeared. Where are IGH based?"

He didn't answer, turning his head to watch a punt slowly passing them by along the river. He'd been so forthcoming before. She'd almost thought that he'd been making an effort.

"You don't want to tell me," she realised. "Everything you said about being honest from now on was bullshit."

He tucked his phone away inside his coat pocket and shook his head. "I'd like to tell you, Jessica, I would, but I know that if I do you'll go running off to find them and that is a bad idea."

"You don't trust me."

He looked at her. "I don't want you to get yourself killed."

It was bullshit but he believed it. He hadn't changed at all. She bit her tongue and refrained from arguing. It wasn't worth it. If she was going to stop IGH, she'd have to do it herself.

* * *

She hadn't given up.

If anything, she was more determined than before. But she had to play it smart. Play the long game.

He'd taken her phone: so what? Her account was about to be suspended anyway. She knew how to get in touch with Trish. She just had to find the right opportunity.

Step one: learn his computer password.

She did that by discreetly passing behind him while he was logging into his laptop. It took a couple of tries but when she got it, it became horribly obvious.

His password was _Jess1ca_.

Of course it was.

Step two: use his laptop without his knowledge.

That was harder. They'd moved into the home of a retired couple whom Kilgrave had compelled to act as his personal servants and she was sure that he had also told them to keep an eye on her. If Kilgrave wasn't in the room, then one of them always was. The only privacy she had was in the bathroom. Or in the bedroom, of course, when he was asleep.

She pretended that she wasn't feeling well. A migraine, she told him. Could she call in at the drug store to buy some paracetamol?

It had to be carefully timed. If she asked at home, he would have gotten one of the couple (Harry and June) to do it. If she asked while he was in a bad mood, he might refuse or make someone else do it for them. They had to be near enough to a drug store that it wouldn't be inconvenient for Jessica to make a detour, but not so close that he'd go in with her.

He rolled his eyes when she asked. "Fine."

But he went in with her. She had to improvise: while Kilgrave got the paracetamol, she scanned the shelves until she found what looked like sleeping pills. She tucked two packets inside her coat when no one was looking and her stomach was doing belly flips as she walked out of the store, expecting the pharmacist to shout after her at any moment.

She made it home.

That night, she put two pills in his coffee and hoped to God it dissolved before he drank it. They curled up on the couch and watched TV. His head drooped. He mumbled something about going to bed but didn't make it off the couch.

Jessica held her breath. He'd slipped down to an awkward position on the couch, head lolling. Gently, she lifted him up, cradling the back of his neck. He didn't stir.

Okay. Good. She could do this. Second time lucky.

She laid him down with his head on a cushion and tucked a blanket around him. This was all for the benefit of Harry and June who were standing in the corner. They had their backs turned so they couldn't see her anyway and she didn't know if Kilgrave had planted any trigger commands like he had done with Jenny and Violet, but she couldn't risk it. She didn't want them to get suspicious.

Even so, she lingered longer than she should. She looked at him with his eyes closed, face calm in repose, and she brushed a finger along his cheek. He looked so innocent. Everyone looked innocent asleep.

Was he truly trying to protect her? Did he love her?

Was he lonely?

It didn't matter. She picked up his laptop and took it over to the dining table where she could keep an eye on Kilgrave.

She sent a message to Trish.

She hadn't expected an immediate reply and she didn't get one. Jessica leaned back in her chair and drummed her fingers on the table. Kilgrave was sound asleep. Harry and June continued to face the wall opposite her; they wouldn't be able to move without Kilgrave's say-so.

In the meantime, she had a laptop. She had a connection to the outside world for the first time since she'd returned to Kilgrave. Jessica bit her lip.

This was an opportunity. There was a mystery at the heart of Kilgrave, a smile where there should have been a name, an empty quip where there should have been a history. She thought again of his face when he'd recalled the time he'd spent in Oxford and her stomach churned.

He'd told her when he used to live here. He'd been born somewhere in this country.

Knowledge was power.

She decided to look him up.

 _The Oxford Mail_ had an online archive dating back to 1998. If Kilgrave's recollections had been accurate, he'd lived in Oxford somewhere between 1999 and 2000. Surely his antics could not have gone unreported.

She spent nearly half an hour scrolling through the archive before she found something. She couldn't be sure, of course. But the headline caught her eye.

 _Oxford student claims man "hypnotised" her into drunken orgy_

She clicked on the link. The article depicted the incident as nothing more than student hijinks with an added flavour of bizarre university rituals. There was no suggestion that the police had been contacted. But it did contain three names: the student who claimed to have been hypnotised, a spokesperson for the college who denied all knowledge of such events and a counsellor who was the only person who seemed to take the student's testimony seriously. She memorised the names of all three and looked up the location of the college.

After another hour she had gone down a rabbit hole that went nowhere searching for the girl who had been hypnotised, whose name was coincidentally Alice Jones, a name common enough to make tracking her difficult even knowing which college she had studied at. She was unable to find out what Alice Jones had done after graduation. Maybe she'd gotten married.

She glanced up at Kilgrave on the couch. Sleeping like a baby.

The spokesperson for the college had moved on and was either based in Liverpool or Stockholm. Hard to tell which.

But when she looked up the counsellor, she found that he was still in Oxford. His name was Reverend Gregory Oldman and he was the college chaplain.

Should she try to contact him?

Did she really want to know?

Before she had decided what to do, an alert popped up on her screen: Trish had replied. It had been two hours and ten minutes. Over in the corner June was beginning to tremble in distress.

 _Sorry Jess, I just got home from work. Are you okay? Where are you?_

Jessica sat up and typed as fast as she could.

 _I'm fine. I'm holed up in a shitty hostel._

 _Are you sure? You terrified me with that phone call. Did Kilgrave get you?_

 _I'm handling it. But I need you to get me out of here. I'm running out of time. When can I meet you at the airport?_

 _I'm so sorry Jess, I'm still trying to figure out the passport situation. I haven't booked a flight yet but I'll let you know as soon as I do. Is it safe to call you?_

 _No it isn't! No calls, no texts. I don't know when I'm gonna get another chance to use a computer. I need a date NOW._

 _I don't have one. I'm not sure how long it's going to take._

 _Then pick one. Book the flight. Just come and get me. Please._

 _Okay. Give me a minute._

She stared at the screen and counted. Seven minutes and forty eight seconds. Kilgrave was still asleep. June was crying quietly, her husband looking ashamed and embarrassed but unable to comfort her. Jessica looked at the other woman, frowning, until she realised what had happened. Kilgrave had fallen asleep before he'd had a chance to release the couple from their nightly vigil. The poor woman had been unable to move for hours and the inevitable had happened.

It was fucking gross and sad, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. She had to sort out her own shit first.

Trish was typing again.

 _Done. 29th, 19:50. Meet me at Heathrow Terminal 5 two hours before the flight._

 _Got it. Thanks._

 _Stay safe._

 _Will do. Don't worry, I'll be there._

 _I love you._

She stared at the words on the screen, her mouth twisting up. Then she deleted the conversation, cleared her browser history and shut the laptop.

* * *

It had been eleven hours. She'd slept for five of them.

She didn't know precisely how long Kilgrave's control lasted for, but she did know that he always gave the house servants fresh orders in the morning and he never slept for more than ten hours. So she guessed that his control must wear off soon after that.

Surely it had to be soon. They couldn't stand there for much longer. June's knees were trembling. Sweat beaded Harry's brow. As soon as the mind control wore off they'd be able to move and she could tell them to go, run, get out of here while they still could…

Kilgrave woke up first.

She heard him moving; he snapped at Harry and June to clean themselves up and off they went. Jessica emerged from the bedroom, Kilgrave's gaze meeting hers and a myriad of expressions flickered across his face: surprise, relief, suspicion, annoyance.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You fell asleep."

"I know that." He cradled the back of his head, frowning. "On the couch too, I don't normally do that. Not a nice way to wake up."

"Are you sick?" She perched on the arm of the couch and leaned over to feel his forehead. "You might have a temperature."

"My head hurts."

Her fingers brushed over his temple. "There? You okay? If you need medicine, I can take care of it. I'll get you a drink, fluids help."

"Yeah," he said, and she made him a cup of tea just how he liked it. It probably wasn't as good as how June would have made it, but then she hadn't had decades of practice. She even gave him a biscuit.

Kilgrave frowned up at her when she handed it over. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I'm not, I'm taking care of you."

He seemed surprised, but he accepted her word nonetheless, even smiling after taking a sip of his tea. She almost felt bad for deceiving him.

Almost.

* * *

If only he'd slept for longer. If only Trish had rescued her sooner. If only she'd been stronger.

Her life was plagued with ifs, every one of them a regret, a black mark in her head. This story was a list of people she had failed to save.

If only she hadn't read that article.


	12. i needed to know

**xii. i needed to know**

She had ten days to go before meeting Trish at the airport. Ten days with Kilgrave. Ten days to plan how she was going to get away.

She'd survived months with him. Ten days was nothing.

She really should have known better.

It was a blustery, cloudy day. The sun broke through on occasion; mostly it threatened to rain. He took her to the Natural History Museum where they looked at dinosaur skeletons and dead animals posed in glass cases, a frozen imitation of existence. A little boy pressed his nose against a case of old-world monkeys. Other kids cooed over the dinosaurs.

She didn't find the animals interesting. She found them sad.

She steered Kilgrave away from an excitable class of eight-year olds before he could snap at them. "I need to use the bathroom."

"Me too," he said when they got to the basement where the toilets were. "Meet you out here."

It was her first stroke of luck. Jessica watched him disappear into the men's bathroom and then went into the ladies and held her breath for ten seconds. He wouldn't be long. She had a small window of opportunity and she couldn't miss it.

She hurried out of the bathroom, up the stairs and out of the museum, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the bright light outside. The college that Alice had studied at was nearby. She walked quickly over the gravel, shoulders hunched, checking behind her every few seconds to make sure that he wasn't in pursuit. She crossed the road and found the college building looming in front of her, tall and imposing. The entrance was open but she avoided it – she didn't know if the porter might stop her and she didn't want to make it easy for Kilgrave to find her either.

Instead she headed for a side street around the corner, craning her head up to pick her spot. A quick glance around told her that she wasn't alone: three or four students were heading her way, plus an old lady on a bicycle and several tourists crossing the road. The city was too busy; she was never going to find a quiet spot.

Screw it.

She bent her knees and sprang. Gasps and shouts followed her but nothing else; gravity had no hold on her. In this moment no one did. She flew up, her stomach flipping, and then gravity reasserted itself and the roof of the college came up to meet her.

She smacked into it on her hands and knees and three or four tiles wobbled and slid off. One foot slipped and she almost fell off but righted herself, getting up to climb over the top of the roof and down the other side where Kilgrave wouldn't be able to see her.

Jessica crawled along the roof, making her way down towards the gutter. Then she dropped down into the quad. A guy with his eyes glued to his cell phone looked up, startled, but he hadn't seen her land and he didn't say anything as Jessica walked past him.

She'd made it into the college grounds. It was a beautiful building: 19th century red brick with ivy and honeysuckle growing on the walls, the square of grass divided into four so that students in a hurry could walk straight across. But her eye was drawn to the chapel which towered over the halls of residence on either side.

She didn't know if he'd be there. She'd have to hope that he was.

She took a breath and entered the chapel.

The high ceiling took her breath away; she could feel the weight of history in the space around her. It was by no means the largest church she had been in, but there was a rich air of tradition in the stained glass windows, the paintings, the statue of Christ on the cross. Her footsteps echoed on the stone floor.

A man had seen her come in. A priestly sort of man: he wore a dog collar.

"Hello," he said. "Can I help you?"

He was softly-spoken, grey-haired, with a calm, gentle air, the sort of temperament that might have greeted a horde of drunken students with an offer of tea.

"I'm looking for the chaplain," she said. "Reverend Gregory Oldman?"

"That would be me."

Thank the Lord. Literally, in his case. She'd gotten lucky again and she wasted no time. "We need to talk. I want to ask you about a crime that was committed fourteen years ago. Do you remember a student called Alice Jones?"

"Alice Jones?" He frowned. "Are you a journalist?"

"No. I want to know if the man who hypnotised her is the same man who's in this city right now. Please tell me what you know. I don't have much time."

She'd successfully alarmed him. She could see that by the way his bushy eyebrows rose a fraction.

"I'm sorry… Did you say hypnotised?"

Maybe he'd forgotten. She felt a twinge of frustration. "Look, I just want to ask you a few questions. I'm not a journalist and you're not in trouble. I just want to know the truth."

There was a pause. He needed some reassurance, she thought. He wouldn't go spilling this story to a complete stranger.

He gestured over to the pews. "Perhaps we'd better sit down."

She perched on the end of the front row, shifting a Bible out of the way. The chaplain took a seat too, adjusted his glasses, and clasped his hands in his lap. Anxiety festered in her stomach. She was mentally counting down the seconds… Kilgrave would have noticed that she was missing by now and he could make the whole city hunt her down.

"What's your name?" the chaplain asked.

"Jessica Jones. No relation," she added hastily. "I read about Alice in a newspaper article and I think I might know the man who did that to her. If there's anything you can tell me about him, anything you can remember…"

He looked troubled. "This man you're talking about, did he find you too? Is that why you don't have much time?"

He was worried about her, she realised. He thought she was another victim. People didn't usually take this sort of soothing tone with her. It was odd.

She shook her head. "No, but I know he's here. Did Alice describe this man to you? Did she say what happened to her?"

"It was a long time ago and a highly fanciful story. Nobody believed it."

"But you did. You were quoted in the article." She glanced behind them as a pair of students entered the chapel, light spilling in from outside. Jessica lowered her voice. "You said you thought there should be better safeguards in place."

"Yes, and for that I'm afraid I was sternly reprimanded by the powers that be." There was a pause. Then he shrugged. "There isn't much to tell you. Alice deeply regretted speaking out. She was ridiculed by her peers and she dropped out before she had completed her second year. Classics. A real shame."

"But you believed her. Why?"

"Well, because I knew her." He smiled slightly. "She was a member of the college choir, a devout Christian and not at all the kind of girl to take part in that… that kind of behaviour. She didn't drink. That night she was out with her friends. She told me that she was always the sober friend in the group, the one who would keep them on the straight and narrow and make sure that they all got home safe at the end of the night. The young man who joined them encouraged them to drink more."

"Who was he?" Jessica asked at once. She was impatient, on tenterhooks; the chaplain had a slow, thoughtful way of speaking and the clock was ticking. Kilgrave was looking for her; she knew that as surely as she knew that her heart was beating. And he would be angrier with every minute that she didn't return. "Did she say what he looked like? Was he British?"

"She didn't say, but I suppose so," the chaplain answered, and she cursed herself for the stupid question. They were in England; of course he was more likely than not to be British. "He was a little older than they were, a grad student. I think – it was a long time ago, forgive me – I think she described him as tall and thin, dark hair. According to Alice, everyone did exactly as he said. She found the details… difficult to talk about, but from what I could gather there were six or seven girls involved. Most of them were too drunk to remember anything. Alice was the only one who remembered it all. Even her own friends didn't believe her."

Jessica's mouth wobbled. She was supposed to be neutral about this. Forget the emotion; that wasn't important. What was important was finding out something – anything – about Kilgrave, anything that might help her escape from him.

But this poor girl. Alice Jones. It didn't help that they shared a name; she imagined a long-lost sister, a girl who had gone through this awful, traumatic experience and tried to talk about it only to have nobody believe her. She must have thought she was going mad.

"Did he give a name?" she asked.

That was what she needed. Proof. Something to connect this story to the man she knew.

The chaplain hesitated. "I…"

"Jessica!"

The voice echoed through the chapel, _his_ voice. It boomed; she felt it like a physical, primal force, a bolt of fear.

She turned around.

Kilgrave was striding down the aisle; he snapped his fingers at the couple of students who had been heading out and they fell into line on either side of him.

"That's him," Jessica said, panic bubbling up in her. "That's him, go, _run_!"

She tried to push the chaplain away, but he was confused, slow. He got to his feet, backing away, but he didn't run. He wasn't fast enough.

"You, stay where you are," Kilgrave snapped and the chaplain was frozen to the floor. Then he turned his gaze on Jessica and she'd expected him to be angry but there was a coldness in his eyes that chilled her to the bone. "You two," he said to the students flanking him, "meet Jessica Jones. Now Jessica has been behaving very badly today so I'm going to have to make sure she doesn't step out of line. If she runs or attacks anyone, kill the priest. Are you going to behave, Jessica?"

Her mouth was dry. The chaplain and the students – she guessed a boyfriend and girlfriend – looked terrified. Slowly, she nodded.

"No more ridiculous stunts?"

She shook her head.

"Good." He folded his arms. "Then would you care to explain yourself?"

"You're overreacting," she said. "A guy in the museum snatched a woman's purse so I chased after him–"

"Let me stop you there." He raised a hand. "That's bollocks. I know because I asked around and no one saw you chase anyone but someone did see you come in here. What are you doing here?"

"Praying," she said waspishly.

He rolled his eyes. "What are you really doing here?"

She didn't answer. She was trying to calculate the distance between herself and the two students. They barely looked older than eighteen, both wide-eyed like children, the guy with long hair and a nose piercing, the girl wrapping a long cardigan around her trembling body. Could she grab both of them before they attacked the chaplain? Could she stop them?

Her lack of answer was not an issue for Kilgrave, frustrated though he was. He turned to the chaplain. "Jessica was talking to you. Why? What did she want? Tell the truth now."

Reverend Gregory Oldman's voice was surprisingly steady. "She came to ask me about an incident that happened fourteen years ago. A student called Alice Jones reported that she and her friends were hypnotised by a strange man. I remember the article about it… The paper called it a drunken orgy."

Kilgrave raised an eyebrow. "An orgy, how scandalous." He looked at Jessica and she could see the cogs turning in his head. "So you thought that was me?"

"You've done it before," she said curtly.

He pursed his lips. "You came here to dig into my past. Why?"

"Because the more I learn about you, the sicker you make me feel."

"Oh, I haven't heard that righteous tone in a while. Interesting. Stay right where you are." He pointed a finger at her, then turned back to the chaplain, looking him up and down. "Never liked priests. Half of you are perverts and the other half are sanctimonious bores. Which one are you?"

"I'm boring," the chaplain stammered. "Really, I am. I'm married. I have two grown sons and one grandchild with another on the way."

"All right, I didn't ask for your life story. This Alice Jones, what happened to her?"

Jessica held her breath. This was the question she hadn't had a chance to ask. The chaplain hadn't told her.

"She dropped out," the chaplain said with a guilty look at Jessica. "I'm afraid I don't know what happened to her after that."

"I see." Kilgrave looked at her again. "Would you like to know?"

The question hung in the air, heavy with ominous possibility. Jessica looked back at him and swallowed. It wasn't morbid curiosity that had taken her here. She wanted to know more, but how could she with Kilgrave in charge? He hadn't given her the chance to ask the waitress anything about her relationship with him back in New York. She couldn't imagine him telling her the truth about what had happened with Alice now.

"I don't know," she said.

"Really." She was afraid when Kilgrave looked at her like that, his gaze piercing right through her. She'd never been any good at lying to him. "How did you know about this anyway?"

"Know about what?"

"Alice Jones, fourteen years ago. Not exactly front page, is it?"

Again, she didn't have a ready answer and he read her hesitation correctly.

"You're hiding something," he said. He looked over at the girl wearing the cardigan. "You, what's your name?"

The girl looked like a frightened rabbit. "Anastasia."

"Anastasia, lovely name." He rolled that one off his tongue with relish and Jessica tried not to shudder. "All right, Anastasia, hold your breath for me. Keep holding it until I say otherwise."

Jesus.

Her throat tightened in sympathy. She felt sick. "Kilgrave, don't do this."

He hadn't overwritten his previous order. If she made a move, both students would attack the chaplain, even with Anastasia unable to breathe. He might as well have his hand around her neck.

"She'll hold her breath until you answer me properly." Kilgrave gave her a look. "Fourteen-year old news story. Where did you hear it?"

"I looked it up," she said, horribly aware of Anastasia's eyes on her, the girl's mouth clamped firmly shut. "Back when I had my phone."

"Bullshit. That was in London. I didn't tell you that I used to live here until we got on the train."

She trembled. Fuck. "I used your phone while you were sleeping."

"What for?"

"To look you up."

"Is that all?"

He suspected. Of course he did. She'd already run away once. Twice, if he counted today.

" _Yes_ ," she said, with more force than necessary. "Let her go! These are innocent people."

Anastasia was visibly shaking, her face red, sweat beading her skin. Both the other student and the chaplain seemed transfixed, staring at her in horror but unable to do anything.

"You're right," Kilgrave said. "You're the one who disobeyed me." He shook his head, leaning back on the edge of one of the pews as he sighed his disappointment. "If you wanted to know, you could just ask. Where's the trust? I'm the only one with the answers you desire."

She gritted her teeth. "I'll do whatever you want, just let them go."

"Will you?" He cocked his head. "You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure!"

"Then I order you to stand and watch," Kilgrave said. "Stand and watch, and do nothing."

She stared at him. "What?"

"You heard me."

"She's choking to death!"

Anastasia's skin had gone white, like curdled milk, and her lips were turning blue. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn't know if the girl could literally suffocate herself to death or if she would faint before that happened, but either way it was horrible.

"Please," said the chaplain, surprising her. His eyes were watery but he spoke clearly. "Please, stop, I beg you."

"You shut up," Kilgrave snapped, standing up. "All of you watch Anastasia. There's a lesson here, Jessica," he added. "Do you know what it is?"

She shook her head. Anastasia was swaying on the spot, her expression so terrified Jessica could see the whites around her eyes. What looked like bruises started to appear on her skin, blotches of colour. Purple and blue.

"It's a lesson in consequences," Kilgrave said. "That girl is suffering because of you. I was lenient with you the first time, Jessica. Then I find out you've been going behind my back, stealing my phone and God knows what else. Say you're sorry."

She was watching a girl dying in front of her. She was doing nothing.

"I'm sorry," Jessica whispered.

It happened in silence. Anastasia blacked out, collapsing in a heap. Four people were watching her. None of them helped.

She wondered if God was watching from the rafters. What a sick, sad world he had left them in.

"Pick her up and take her with you," Kilgrave ordered the other student. "Say nothing about this encounter. Pretend it never happened." He turned back to the chaplain. "Same goes for you. I'll know if you report this. I'll find you."

He didn't need to finish the threat. Jessica felt her throat close up.

Kilgrave held out his hand to her. "Come on. We're leaving."

* * *

"She didn't die," Jessica said. "He let them go, like he promised."

Trish shifted in her seat. "So she was okay? Thank God."

Jessica shook her head. "She started breathing again as soon as she fainted but there's a good chance she had permanent brain damage. I don't know. I never saw her again."

She'd looked up the effects of suffocation later, torturing herself with the memory of that day. Even if Anastasia had escaped without any brain damage, the trauma would stay with her forever. Same for the boyfriend. Same for the chaplain. Three lives ruined in minutes, all because of her.

Which led her to the final part of this story.

Alice.

* * *

"You're so curious about her," said Kilgrave. "Let's go find her."

He made it sound like a whim. She'd brought Alice to his attention, had put the idea into his head. There wasn't anything she could do to dissuade him.

It was easy for him.

He compelled his way into the office where the student records were kept and looked up the names of Alice's next of kin: her parents. From there it didn't take a lot of research to find out where they lived, look them up online and consequently learn that Alice had in fact gotten married.

Her name was Alice Walters.

It was two days before she was due to flee to the airport. She'd been quiet and subdued since the incident in the chapel. She kept thinking of what he might do if she ran away for a third time. How many more would suffer?

"Why do you want to find her?"

They were in a black Mercedes driving along the M1. Alice Walters lived in Leeds. Her husband's name was Andrew. She had a part-time job working in human resources.

And Kilgrave had her home address.

"You want to find her, not me," Kilgrave said. "I'm giving you what you want."

She looked at him. "Why? What are you getting out of this?"

"What are you getting out of it?"

He was quick to turn the question back on her, giving her a pointed look. He had to suspect that she was trying to dig up dirt on him. There was no way that whatever had happened with Alice could paint him in a good light. Which made his motives even more mysterious.

"I'm trying to decide whether I can trust you," she settled on eventually. There was truth in that.

"And how is a drunk night out fourteen years ago going to help you do that?"

"It'll establish a pattern," she said coldly.

"I suppose I should be flattered by your interest. You don't have to go to Alice to hear the story though, you know. Like I said, I could tell you."

"You don't talk about your past."

"That's not true. We've learned a lot about each other, haven't we? You and your dead parents. Me and my life here, before I came to New York. Do you want to hear it?"

"Do I want to hear what?"

"What I got up to in Oxford."

"You mean with Alice?"

He shrugged. "Well, I don't know about Alice specifically. Truth be told I don't remember her. But I played around a lot back then, crashed a lot of parties. You remember how I said I don't get drunk?"

She wasn't sure where this was going. "Yeah…"

"Well, this is why. I was twenty-two. I wanted to try everything. I got bored of boat trips and picnics and the theatre. It was all drinking and sex and why have one girl when you can have two or three or more."

"So you're telling me that it did happen."

She nearly added _you sick bastard_ , but she couldn't do it. Kilgrave's expression was animated, his eyes bright. She felt like the life had been sucked out of her.

"I'm telling you that was a Friday night. The point is that I overindulged. I was in my twenties; I had more energy than sense and before I knew it I was telling the police to get off my back. I'm not like that anymore." He took her hand and his tone was painfully earnest. "I've settled down, I know what I like and what I don't, I know it pays to be careful and I know that I only want one woman in my life. You. I want a meaningful relationship, not a bunch of strangers. This Alice Walters we're going to see, she's a stranger. She isn't important."

"Then why take me to see her?" She had to ask it again. She felt like she was missing something. What was he up to?

"To satisfy your curiosity," he said, which told her nothing. "But more importantly, to show you that the past is the past. I've changed. You can too."

She blinked. "You want _me_ to change?"

"Of course I do. I want you to get this obsession with my so-called misdeeds out of your system, and be less of a moody cow while you're at it. _Smile_ , Jessica."

She didn't smile.

She didn't punch him in the face either, but she thought about it.

Maybe it didn't matter why he was doing this. Her intention had been to find out as much as she could about Alice Jones from the chaplain, track her down if possible, and Kilgrave was giving her the opportunity to do that. If she ran from him now it wouldn't make a difference. He knew where Alice lived.

This was already happening. She had to go with him. It was the only way to keep Alice safe.

* * *

"Why?" Trish asked.

"You don't believe that I wanted to keep her safe?"

"I…" Trish licked her lips. There had been times she had been silent during this story. She hadn't condemned Jessica but she hadn't tried to comfort her either.

Some things weren't forgivable.

Jessica looked away. "No, you're right. The truth is, I put my own needs first. I needed to hear what had happened to Alice from the source. I needed to know what it was like."

"I don't understand. You needed to know what it was like being controlled by Kilgrave?"

She turned her gaze back on Trish. She had to face her for this. "You don't know what it's like being around people controlled by Kilgrave. It looks like consent. It looks like they want to do whatever he tells them. I spent a lot of time with Kilgrave convincing myself that what he did was okay. I wanted proof that I was wrong."

"And that girl almost choking to death wasn't enough?"

Trish didn't get it. For her the situation was black and white. "No," said Jessica. "No, it wasn't enough."

* * *

Alice's house was a two-bedroom terrace in a rundown street that looked like it had seen better days. Some of the houses had windows boarded up. None of them had gardens that were well-tended to; they were all a mess of weeds or paved over for a parking space. The gate was creaky and hanging off its hinges.

It wasn't where she had expected an Oxford graduate to live. Then again, Alice had never graduated.

Kilgrave knocked at the door, waited for about five seconds before he lost patience and turned the door handle, finding it unlocked. The smell of boiled potatoes and broccoli wafted out from what Jessica assumed was the kitchen and her mouth watered.

A woman came through into the entrance hall and stopped, startled. "Oh–"

"Hello!" Kilgrave greeted her with a jovial smile. "You must be Alice. You're delighted to invite us in. Come on, let us come through."

Alice was delighted to invite them in. She showed them into the kitchen where a roast dinner was cooking on the stove, making the window steam up.

Jessica's eyes darted around. She was a ball of nerves.

It was always worst when he was with other people. Never knowing when he might lose his temper. Never knowing when he might snap.

Alice didn't know that she'd let a scorpion into her house. Jessica watched her check the saucepans, tucking her hair behind her ears. She was dressed in sweatpants, no make-up, clearly not expecting visitors but Jessica could see why she might have attracted a younger Kilgrave: she had delicate features, a soft bow-shaped mouth and deep blue eyes framed by wispy brown hair.

She was also very thin, with worry lines at the corners of her mouth and forehead. Thin and stressed, despite her smile.

"I'm cooking tea," Alice said. "Do you want some?"

"We'd be delighted," Kilgrave replied. "Do you recognise me, Alice?"

She turned to look at him and Jessica held her breath. For a moment Alice looked blank. It was easy to pinpoint the moment of realisation: her eyes went wide and she stumbled back into the counter, gasping for breath.

"You," she stammered. "You – you're…"

Kilgrave stepped forward, reaching out to shake Alice's hand. "The pleasure's all mine. The name's Kilgrave, if you didn't know."

Jessica had moved as soon as Kilgrave did, grabbing his arm. "Don't touch her."

She'd let Kilgrave in here because he was the best way to make Alice talk, but she wasn't going to let him touch her.

He frowned. "And this is Jessica. Excuse her poor manners, she gets jealous. Then again I can't blame her."

"Kilgrave!" She pulled him away. Alice was breathing so fast that she felt sure the poor woman was having a silent panic attack. "Help her."

"All right," he said, shooting her an irritated look. He shrugged her off and Jessica stepped back. "Calm down, Alice. We're only here to talk. Jessica wanted to ask you a few questions about our relationship back in the day, God knows why. Sit down. Let's chat."

Alice's breathing had slowed. She nodded and Jessica watched Kilgrave like a hawk, making sure that he didn't go near her as Alice moved to take a seat at the table. They sat down and so began the most uncomfortable interrogation Jessica had ever experienced and she was the interrogator.

She started at the beginning. "When did you last see Kilgrave?"

"In Oxford," Alice said. Her voice was soft, devoid of emotion. "My second undergrad year."

"Tell me what happened."

Alice told the story with the detachment of an observer, as if it had happened to someone else. She and her friends were in a pub, celebrating her friend's birthday. Then a man walked in, another student they thought, and joined them. He made them act like they were all friends, like they'd known him for years. Got them to refill their drinks again and again until none of her friends could walk in a straight line. She was sober only because she had been drinking normal Coke instead of vodka and Coke and he hadn't noticed.

Jessica watched her tell the tale, mouth tight, stealing the occasional side glance at Kilgrave who was also watching in silent fascination. This was new to him, she thought. Revisiting his victims. He'd never had the pleasure of replaying what he'd done to them.

"He asked which of us had the best room," Alice continued, "and I told him mine. So we all went up to my room and then he…"

Her eyes filled with tears.

"What are you getting all emotional for?" Kilgrave asked. "Go on, tell Jessica. Tell her what it was like."

Jesus Christ. He was enjoying this. She should have known: it was his base reason for anything.

She shot Kilgrave the dirtiest look she could muster. "Don't be a prick."

"It was surreal," Alice said. "I felt like… at the time I wanted it. We did what he said but it was more than that, we all felt the way he told us to feel too. We wanted what he wanted. I liked that he was watching us. And when it was my turn he told me that I would love it and I did, even though it hurt."

"It hurt?" Jessica said.

Kilgrave frowned; he hadn't expected to hear that.

"It was my first time," Alice said. "I don't really remember… I think it hurt, but then it didn't? I don't know."

"What did you think afterwards? After he'd gone?"

"I was confused. I didn't understand what had happened. I thought maybe he drugged us."

"You reported it."

She nodded. "That was the stupidest thing I did. I couldn't take it, all the teasing, everyone judging me. Somehow it got out what had happened. I was supposed to be saving myself for marriage and then I had this one stupid night…"

"Oh, dear," Kilgrave said. "Innocence corrupted."

Jessica clenched her hand around his wrist none-too-gently. "I am one more insensitive comment away from kicking you out."

He looked at her, unafraid. "And I am one more feisty comment away from doing the same."

"I felt like I had betrayed God," Alice went on. "I betrayed my parents. I betrayed myself."

"You wish it had never happened," Jessica finished for her.

To her surprise, Alice hesitated. "It's complicated."

"Complicated how? He did something to you that you didn't want. You dropped out of college, you ended up in this shitty town. He ruined your life."

"Hey, hey, hey," Kilgrave said, frowning at her. "What's all this? Don't put words into her mouth."

"Why not?" she snapped. "You do."

They looked at each other, eyes locked, and Alice might as well not have been there. The room was hot; she was sweating beneath her clothes. The tension simmered.

"You're looking for a reason to hate me, Jessica. That's obvious. Here's what I don't understand: why? You said that you'd stay with me. You promised."

"I told you, I can't live like this," she said. "I can't do what you do, Kilgrave, I can't forget that they're people."

"Oh, so this is _your_ guilt you're trying to pin on me?" He shook his head, gave a bitter laugh. "You're a hypocrite. You're fine with my powers when they suit you, aren't you? But the second I use them to do anything for myself, suddenly your conscience kicks in."

"You know what I think?" Jessica said, her voice cracking. "I think you raped her."

Kilgrave stared at her. "What?"

"Mum, I'm home!"

There was the sound of the front door slamming shut. Shoes being taken off. Alice had been watching the two of them yo-yo back and forth like a tennis match, but now she suddenly turned around in her chair, craning her head towards the doorway.

Kilgrave raised an eyebrow. "Who's that?"

The breath had been knocked out of Jessica's chest. She had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

"Chloe," Alice said. "My daughter." She looked at Kilgrave. "Your daughter."


	13. not my problem

**xiii. not my problem**

Kilgrave despised kids. Despised them. Had no interest in them.

The narcissistic fuckwad had no right to be a father.

She didn't need Alice to tell her to work out how this one had played out. Good Christian girl gets raped by mind controlling psychopath. He never used contraception; she'd never needed it. She was saving herself for marriage. Then she discovered that she was pregnant by him and no matter how horrific that was, no matter how much she didn't want his child, she couldn't bring herself to abort it.

She probably thought this was a punishment from God or some shit like that.

So she dropped out of college, whatever promising career she'd had ahead of her down the pan. Maybe her family were supportive, maybe they weren't, but she had a baby to bring up all by herself and Jessica wondered how she could ever have loved the thing when it was a product of _him_.

But she'd never had children. She didn't know what it was like, any more than she knew what it was like to be controlled by Kilgrave.

She could only guess, could only try to navigate the mess and confusion that he left in his wake.

They'd left so many broken people behind them.

* * *

"Mum?" Chloe walked into the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of them. "Oh. Hi."

Jessica stared. That klaxon was going off in her brain again. The one that said _oh shit oh shit oh shit_ on repeat.

Shit.

She hadn't thought of this. She'd led Kilgrave straight here and she had no idea how he was going to react and she was supposed to be getting on a plane in two days.

Chloe was wearing a school uniform, bag slung over her shoulder. She had curly hair like Alice, but her eyes were the same shade of brown as Kilgrave's. Skinny too, though traces of baby fat rounded out her cheeks. Early teens, Jessica guessed, that awkward gangly age when puberty was hitting full-force. The right age to be his.

"What did you say?" Kilgrave said.

"She's your daughter," Alice repeated. "Please don't hurt her."

"Kilgrave, I think we should go."

Obviously he wasn't going to listen to that. Kilgrave rose to his feet, looking between mother and daughter. "Are you sure? Tell me the truth."

Alice nodded. "She's yours. There wasn't anyone else."

Chloe had stopped in the doorway and she shifted nervously from foot to foot, staring at them. "Mum?"

"Hello," said Kilgrave. He wore an expression Jessica had never seen before: surprised and joyous and tender all at once. He was _pleased_. "Chloe, hello, this is… Well, this is a surprise. I'm your father."

Chloe opened her mouth then closed it again. She looked stunned.

Jessica stood up too as Kilgrave moved forward, ready to stop him if needed. Kilgrave was babbling. "I – well, I honestly wasn't expecting this to happen, Jessica and I – this is Jessica – were just dropping in on your mother for a call and then this bombshell drops. I'm a father! I'm your dad. Hey, I'm shocked too. What do you think? Come on, speak."

"You're my dad?" Chloe whispered, looking again at her mother for guidance. "My real dad?"

"Yes," said Kilgrave impatiently. "Tell her, Alice."

"That's him," said Alice, who still hadn't moved from the table. "That's your dad."

She should have warned Chloe, Jessica thought. Should have told her that her dad was a psychopath. But she couldn't speak up now and she probably hadn't wanted to burden her daughter with the truth.

 _Maybe I should say something. Stop this family reunion._

Jessica cleared her throat. "Look – Alice – we're sorry for butting in on you. We should go."

"No, no," said Kilgrave. "Look, Jessica, this is my daughter."

"I noticed," Jessica said, the bile rising in her throat, but Chloe talked over her.

"Mum," she said suddenly. "Why did you say don't hurt her?"

Chloe was fiddling with a necklace she wore over her shirt; it had a tiny cross on it. So the girl hadn't missed the tension in the room. Alice seemed frozen to her seat.

Kilgrave replied. "Let me answer that. Your mother's being melodramatic. You'll understand when I tell you more about myself, but trust me, you're safe with us."

Chloe nodded, dropping her hand back by her side. Was she simply impressionable, or had she been compelled? She looked more relaxed. The tiny crease between her eyes had disappeared.

"Look at you," Kilgrave went on, marvelling at the girl in front of him. For the first time, Chloe gave a hesitant smile. "You're beautiful. My daughter, what a sight. Give your father a hug."

Jessica held her breath. Chloe threw her arms around Kilgrave and he hugged her tight, and again she couldn't tell if Chloe was obeying the command like everyone else did or if she really wanted to hug him. If Chloe was his daughter… was there a possibility that she'd be immune to Kilgrave's powers? Or that she'd have powers of her own? God help the girl if she'd inherited his mind control. God help the mother.

She looked at Alice who was watching the scene with a strange expression, her mouth tight. It was almost touching, this reunion. Maybe it would be in other circumstances.

Kilgrave straightened up and regarded his daughter, eyes soft.

"Is she a good mother?" he asked. "Is she looking after you properly?"

 _Oh, fuck you_ , Jessica thought, but she didn't say anything.

"Er, yeah," said Chloe.

"Good," he said. "I'd only want the best for my daughter. This house though, bit rundown. Terrible garden. Do you have money? Have you ever been abroad?"

"I went to Barcelona once," Chloe volunteered. "We all did, Dad too. But yeah, we don't have a lot of money. Why, are you rich?"

"Very rich." Kilgrave looked at Alice. "By Dad, she means your husband, Andrew?"

Alice nodded.

"Where is he?"

"At work. He'll be home soon."

"We need to be gone by then," Jessica said, sensing the danger.

Kilgrave nodded. "Chloe, sweetheart, what did your mother tell you about me?"

"Not a lot," Chloe said. "Only that you were a student. She never liked to talk about it."

"Did she ever tell you that I'm gifted? That I'm special?"

Chloe's eyes widened. "No…"

"Well, I am. I have powers. I can control minds. My friend Jessica here, she has super strength. That's why your mother was worried about us, because we can do things that others can't, but that's what we call being small-minded and petty. Can you do anything, Chloe? Are you special?"

"No," Chloe stammered. "I don't think so. Mum, this is weird. What happens when Dad gets home?"

"I'm your dad," said Kilgrave, and Jessica stepped forward to lay a hand on his arm.

"For Christ's sake, you just met. She doesn't know you. Andrew's been her dad for years."

"Well, he's done a shit job, hasn't he," said Kilgrave, "leaving you here. What kind of a dad is that?"

Chloe stared at him, her cheeks flushing, and for one reason or another this comment triggered something in her. "You can't say that! You don't know how hard he works. If you're my real dad, then you left Mum when she was pregnant, you just left her–"

"Chloe, don't," Alice said weakly.

"Hey, now," said Kilgrave, "it isn't my fault, your mother never told me she was pregnant. I had no idea that you existed. Alice, get on with the cooking. Chloe, be a good girl, set the table and wait for us. Jessica and I need to have a word."

Her stomach dropped. Jessica walked over to the doorway where it was less steamy, and noted that Chloe had obeyed the command without question. Seemed like she was vulnerable.

Kilgrave joined her. "Well. This is unexpected."

"You can say that again."

"What do you think I should do?"

She looked at him, startled. "What?"

He never asked for her advice. He always made all the decisions.

"It's not every day you learn you have a child, Jessica. This is new territory for me. I think my daughter needs our help, what do you say?"

She thought about it. "Don't separate her from her mom. That's the last thing they want."

"Then what?"

"I think we should leave."

"Leave my daughter? After I've just found her?"

"Yes," said Jessica, wondering if he would listen to her, if this was worth it. "They have their own lives, Kilgrave, they won't be any better off if you interfere. They were fine before we got here and they'll be fine if we go. You don't even like kids."

"Yes, well, I've never had one of my own before, have I?"

He looked over at Chloe who was setting the plates, knives and forks on the table, and the tenderness in his eyes was an expression he usually reserved for her. He was infatuated, she thought. A sudden, temporary sense of pride and love, as if the girl was a doll he had crafted himself.

Jessica folded her arms. "So what, you want to stay here? Or take them with us? Where? How? Won't they get in our way?"

He frowned, and she could see him thinking about it. He hadn't decided what to do. Oh, God, she hoped he'd come to the realisation that they'd cramp his style on his own. He'd never hear it from her.

"I want to stay," he decided, dashing her hopes. "At least for a while. I want to get to know my daughter."

Jessica looked at the pair of them, mother and daughter. Both occupied with their tasks. Alice was checking the oven; a delicious smell of beef wafted out and her stomach rumbled. Meanwhile she and Kilgrave faced each other from either side of the doorway, as if standing guard. It didn't matter, of course. Alice and Chloe weren't getting out.

"What about the husband?" she asked. She had no illusions about how Kilgrave treated any man he perceived to be even the slightest threat. He got rid of them, plain and simple.

"Well, he'll have to go," said Kilgrave, distracted by the roast that Alice was taking out of the oven.

Jessica shook her head. "You are so fucking predictable. For once in your life, can you not be an asshole?"

He turned on her. "For once in my life, that's exactly what I'm doing! For once in my life I'm putting someone else first. My daughter."

"You _just_ met." Every time she thought she'd seen the height of his ridiculous behaviour, he proved her wrong. "Don't act like you care about her."

"Are you jealous?"

"Jesus, Kilgrave. No, I'm not jealous."

"You are, aren't you? You're worried about what this means for us." He took her hands. "Jessica, I love you."

 _Wait._

 _Stop._

She stared at him.

It was the first time he'd said it. She tried to speak and couldn't. She was in shock.

He loved her.

He'd said the words. He…

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Don't worry. I'll always love you."

"Okay," she managed, trying to get her brain back into gear. "Okay, fine. Just one thing. Promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Promise that you won't hurt Chloe or anyone she cares about."

He raised his eyebrows. "Of course, I would never–"

"Including Andrew."

He made a face. "He's not her real dad."

"But I bet she cares about him." Jessica looked at Chloe, wondering what was going through the poor girl's mind. "Go on. Ask her. Ask her who she cares about."

Chloe was gathering four glasses from the top kitchen cupboard. Kilgrave called her and she stopped in her tracks, turning to look at him. Jessica couldn't read her expression. That was one of the things about Kilgrave's mind control; so often it wiped the victim of any personality, forbade any expression beyond the function he wanted them to fulfil. She had the sense that Chloe was the bolder of the two, but right now it was impossible to tell.

"Alice's husband, Andrew," Kilgrave said. "Do you care about him?"

"Yeah," said Chloe at once. "Yeah, I do."

"Then I won't hurt him," Kilgrave promised. "There." He shot a look at Jessica. "Satisfied?"

Chloe's forehead creased. "Were you going to hurt him?"

"Okay!" said Jessica, stepping in. "Dinner's up, come on, gather round."

Alice placed the slab of beef in the centre of the table. The plates were set. Within minutes Jessica had ushered the four of them around the table and Alice had served the rest of the food: boiled potatoes, broccoli, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. They had only water to drink and Jessica was expecting Kilgrave to complain about that so before he got to it, she stood up and raised her glass.

"I would just like to say something," she said, and Kilgrave gave her a look but didn't stop her. "Especially to you, Alice and Chloe, because I know this has been a weird night. From now on you're going to have to do everything that Kilgrave says, so a word of advice. Don't piss him off. He thinks he's your saviour, don't prove him wrong. Be a good daughter, be a good mom, whatever Kilgrave thinks that entails. Oh, and don't disappoint him. Your life will be better if you don't disappoint him. Trust me. I know."

Kilgrave raised his glass. "Wise words," he said, toasting her. "Jessica always has my back, remember that. Well, then. Let's eat."

* * *

Her one and only achievement that night was stopping Kilgrave from flat-out murdering Andrew when he arrived home. Kilgrave immediately rearranged the house to his liking. He told Andrew to lock himself away in the study upstairs and not speak to anyone. Meanwhile, downstairs Kilgrave questioned Chloe on her life story. He wanted to know everything about her: where she'd grown up, who her friends were, how she was doing in school, her hobbies, her favourite food, every little mundane thing. Sometimes she mentioned things that he liked too, which delighted him; she must have gotten it from him. Anything he didn't like she must have gotten from her mother – or worse, from Andrew's influence.

Jessica rolled her eyes.

Later, he ordered Alice to sleep on the couch so that he and Jessica could take the master bedroom. Andrew remained confined in the study; Jessica had to remind Kilgrave to let him use the bathroom. She picked up one of the pillows from the bedroom for him.

"You'll have to sleep on the floor," she said. "I'm sorry."

He stared at her. His suit was rumpled. It was nothing like Kilgrave's; the jacket was cheap and ill-fitting. She'd guess he was a little older than Kilgrave, perhaps forty or so. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with thinning hair and the stressed-out, tired look of a middle manager.

Or maybe he was stressed because he'd arrived home and instead of sitting down for dinner with his wife and daughter, he'd been compelled into locking himself away in a dark room for hours while a mind-controlling psychopath made eyes at his family.

"I can't leave," he said. "Why can't I leave?"

"Kilgrave controls minds," she said shortly. "He promised he wouldn't harm you or your family but I wouldn't take him at his word. You'll be better off if you stay quiet."

The anguish in his face was hard to describe. She couldn't look.

"Is he controlling you too?"

"No," she admitted.

"Then why don't you stop him?"

She said nothing, stepping back to close the door in his face.

"Please! Help us!"

Christ. She looked up at him, at the tears in his eyes. He was angry and scared and powerless.

"That man is taking over my family. There must be–"

She cut him off. "There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry."

Something in his face changed. "You're helping him. Why?"

He had her pillow clutched to his chest. Not like a child holding a teddy bear; there was nothing protective about it. He held that pillow like he had a cat in his hands that he was trying to strangle.

"I'm not helping him," she said.

"Yes, you are." He took a step forward and she half-closed the door on him, mouth thinning. "You evil bitch. How can you do this? How can you do this to us?"

"I'm not," she said, and she hated how his words were getting to her. "Just shut up, you're not helping!"

"Jessica?"

She jumped as Kilgrave appeared in the hallway behind her, coming up to wrap his arms around her waist. He kissed her hair. "Is he bothering you?"

"You're together," Andrew said, looking at the pair of them, and she knew that his worst theories had been confirmed.

She resisted from elbowing Kilgrave in the ribs.

"Yes, we are," said Kilgrave. "Tonight we'll be sleeping in your bed and you don't get to say anything about that. In fact you don't get to say anything at all. Shut up and go to sleep."

Andrew turned away without another word and Jessica finally shut the door. She exhaled, slumping back into Kilgrave's arms.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Not too tired, I hope."

She sighed and followed him to bed. He'd ordered Alice to clean up before coming in here. Fresh sheets, no dirty clothes lying around. Like it had been made up just for them.

"Is Chloe all right?"

He nodded. "I already wished her good night."

The blankets were kind of scratchy. One of their lamps didn't work. Kilgrave started to kiss her and she wondered when she'd stopped finding it weird sleeping in other people's beds.

"Are you serious about this?" she asked.

He paused, and she tried to read his expression in the dark. "About being a father? Yes."

"Are you sure? It's a big responsibility. I didn't think you knew that word."

"Jessica! Come on, do you really think so little of me?"

"You can always prove me wrong."

"I will," he said. "You've been awfully judgemental about me these past few days. But if I can forgive you for running away, then you ought to give me a shot at this. Deal?"

It was funny. All the things she'd had in her head. Everything she'd meant to confront him about, what he had done to Alice… All gone. After all, she had to put herself first, didn't she? She had to get to the airport.

"Deal," she said.

He smiled and kissed her, long and slow. "You know," he said, "for this to be sustainable… Andrew has to go."

She rolled her eyes. "You really don't like him."

"He shagged my ex. Of course I don't like him."

He slipped his hand into her underwear and Jessica squirmed, turning her head towards the wall.

"She might hear us."

Chloe's bedroom was next door and she didn't think this was the kind of house that had soundproofed walls.

Kilgrave chuckled. "So what? She's thirteen, she knows about sex."

Jessica made a face. At the dinner table, he'd asked Chloe if she'd ever had a boyfriend and then if she'd ever kissed anyone. The answer to both had been no. "Good," he'd said. "No one touches my daughter. You're far too young for that."

At least he'd only gone for the overprotective father route. It could have been worse.

She wondered what he'd do when she left. Would he move on to Alice? Play at happy families? That was a game he'd never tried before; it might occupy him for a while.

It was what she needed. She needed Kilgrave to be distracted. This diversion could work out in her favour.

Not in Alice's favour, nor Chloe's, obviously. And she doubted that Andrew would make it out alive without her.

Well. What could she do?

* * *

"Jess… Didn't you think about rescuing them?"

"No," she said. "He'd found something he wanted and it wasn't me. I saw my chance and I took it."

"You knew it would be impossible to get them out. You couldn't save them and save yourself."

"You'd like to believe that, wouldn't you?" It wasn't the first time Trish had tried to find an excuse for her. She hadn't come up with anything that Jessica hadn't already told herself. "Maybe it was impossible, but I didn't try. They weren't the first I abandoned. All the people he enthralled as slaves in their own homes, the servants, the cleaners, whatever. I didn't save them either. I have no excuse. I am so far from the hero you wanted me to be."

Trish looked down. Silence thickened the air.

"…Does he still have them?"

"Alice and Chloe?" She shook her head. "I don't know."

* * *

The next day Kilgrave insisted on taking Chloe to school.

"I usually get the bus," she said.

"Not today."

She had the feeling it wasn't the last time Chloe would hear that. Kilgrave sent Andrew and Alice off to work with strict instructions not to reveal that anything in their lives had changed; he wasn't interested in them. He wanted to spend time with Chloe.

"Come on," Kilgrave said, and Jessica put her coffee down with a grimace before following them. If she let Kilgrave accompany Chloe alone, God only knew what awful things she might witness. She had to babysit.

They got to Chloe's school by car – as in, Kilgrave literally stopped a random car on the street and ordered the driver to take them there. Chloe sat in the middle seat between Kilgrave and Jessica, clutching her bag tightly in her lap. She didn't say anything; she was either dazzled or frightened by Kilgrave's presence. Hard to tell.

"This is much better than the bus, isn't it?" Kilgrave said.

Chloe nodded.

"No waiting around in the cold. We'll get you there right on time."

The girl's eyes flicked over to Kilgrave once then immediately back to staring in front of her. It wasn't the response he was looking for.

"Aren't you going to thank me?"

"Jesus, Kilgrave," Jessica said, breaking the awkward silence. "Give her a break. She doesn't know about your constant need for validation. She'll learn, if she knows what's good for her."

"What?" he said, and at least he was annoyed with her now rather than Chloe. Better that she bear the brunt of his temper. "I don't need constant validation, where the hell did you pull that one from?"

"Up your ass," she deadpanned.

"Hey, watch your language. Children should respect their parents. You hear that, Chloe?"

Chloe nodded. She had shrunk back into her seat, elbows tucked at her sides, hair falling over her eyes. Avoiding looking at either of them.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "You sound like my mother. Not my real mother. The evil stepmom."

"We're here," said Chloe suddenly.

She was right. The car had slowed down. They pulled up outside the school gates, and Kilgrave gave Jessica one last look before getting out of the car and holding out his hand to help Chloe out too. Jessica sighed. Maybe she was giving him a hard time but she knew how this started. And that sharp way he had demanded a thank you from Chloe did remind her of Trish's mom.

She got out of the car to find Kilgrave talking to Chloe.

"Be good," he said, "enjoy your day, and do your best. All right? Will you do that for me?"

Chloe glanced at Jessica, and Jessica gave her a small nod. _Come on, kid. You can do this._

"I'll do my best," Chloe said, her eyes meeting Kilgrave's. "Thanks, Dad."

He grinned at her. "Off you go."

Chloe hurried off into the school grounds, and Jessica breathed. There. The girl was safe for a few hours. She folded her arms, leaning against the painted green fence while Kilgrave ordered their driver to leave.

Then he turned back to her, and he was still grinning from ear to ear. "She called me Dad."

"She's a fast learner."

He didn't get it. She didn't expect him to.

"I want to look around," Kilgrave decided. "Get the lay of the land."

"Inside the school?" Jessica asked, alarmed.

"No, no, I mean the local area. Look at this place." He went up to the fence, curling his hands around the bars and peered inside. "Looks miserable."

She turned to look, and wasn't sure whether she agreed. The school was a concrete block of a building and immediately in front of her was the parking lot, but it wasn't all concrete. There was plenty of grass too. No flower beds or anything, but what was he expecting? It was an inner city school.

Maybe he meant the kids. There were plenty of them heading into the school grounds, shouting to each other, kicking around a football, giving Kilgrave and Jessica funny looks as they walked past.

"Oi!" said one scruffy-looking boy, grinning as he jabbed a finger to get their attention. "You selling drugs round our school?"

"No," said Kilgrave, responding before Jessica could stop him. "Run along and forget we were here."

"Let's go," said Jessica, and to her relief he agreed.

She took his arm and they walked away from the school, Kilgrave shaking his head. "I suppose I couldn't expect any better from a council estate."

"A what?"

He gestured around. "This. Homes for the poor and the workshy. These kids won't amount to anything. I can't believe my daughter grew up in a dump like this."

She said nothing. This street was similar to the one that Alice lived on, and yeah, it clearly wasn't a wealthy neighbourhood. She'd grown up in a well-to-do suburb with white picket fences and well-tended gardens and expensive cars. None of that here, just roads and grass and weeds, the houses packed together in varying states of repair.

Kilgrave stood out like a sore thumb.

They came to a small park with swings and a roundabout, upon which perched three teenage boys smoking cigarettes. All three eyed Kilgrave with suspicion.

"Purple shirt," said the oldest boy, who looked as tall as Kilgrave and much more likely to win in a fight. "What's that, you drop it in your mum's laundry?"

The others sniggered.

"Christ, you really have no class around here," said Kilgrave. "Stamp out your cigarettes and get back to school. All of you."

The boys obeyed, sloping off back in the direction of the school. That left Kilgrave and Jessica alone. He took a seat on one of the swings and she joined him, scuffing the ground in front of her while she tried to think of what to say.

"Kilgrave…"

He looked at her. "Hmm?"

"I was just thinking… What you said back there, to Chloe. That was probably the least shitty command I've ever heard you say."

He blinked. "Oh. That is a compliment coming from you. You think I did the right thing then?"

"You told her to do her best. You helped her."

"And there I thought you were going to spend all day comparing me to your mother."

She shook her head. "Sorry about that. It was a kneejerk reaction. I remember how shitty she was to me and to Trish. I know you wouldn't want that for Chloe."

"No," he mused. "I don't have any good role models, you know, when it comes to parenthood. My parents abandoned me when I was ten."

"Oh," she said. He'd never told her that before. "Was that before or after you were experimented on?"

"After." He clasped his hands in his lap. "I suppose they were scared. But I was scared too. I was just a child and they left me to fend for myself."

Jessica looked at him. It was rare seeing Kilgrave in these vulnerable moments, especially when he was talking about his past. There was a tremor in his voice. What had happened to that little boy that was so awful he had grown up into this? No home, no parents, no supervision of his mind control powers… Maybe that was explanation enough. How could anyone grow up with any sense of decency when they had grown up like him?

"You asked Chloe if she has any powers," she said. "Does it bother you that she doesn't?"

He shook his head. "No. She's still mine. Maybe she does have abilities that she doesn't know about yet, who knows. I'll look after her either way. I can give her anything she wants, like I've given you everything you want. She won't want for anything. That's my promise to her. That's how I'll be a good dad."

Jessica was silent for a long moment. Where to even begin with that? "Well, I'm glad you want to be a good dad."

"I really do," he said. "I can make sure that she gets what I didn't. A loving home. A family."

A home. A family. She looked at him. Wasn't that what everyone wanted, in the end? She didn't have the heart to tell Kilgrave that Chloe already had a home and a family, and that his presence would only disrupt her life, not improve it.

No, she felt like… she felt like he was sincere. He really wanted to try.

Shouldn't she let him?

* * *

That night after Chloe came home from school, they played Cluedo together, the four of them, and the atmosphere was so cheery and cosy that she could almost forget that Andrew had once again been locked away upstairs.

"You should be Professor Plum," said Chloe. "Since you like purple."

"Fitting," said Kilgrave, "but Colonel Mustard is much more handsome like me, don't you think? Professor Plum is old."

"Yeah, but you're pretty old," said Chloe.

Jessica tensed, but Kilgrave laughed it off. "Tell you what, since you like Professor Plum so much, you take that piece. Jessica, you be Miss Scarlett of course, and Alice, you take Mrs White."

"No cheating," said Jessica. "I'm watching you."

"As if I would."

As it turned out, she was so busy watching Kilgrave to make sure he didn't cheat, she forgot to pay adequate attention to the game itself and was as surprised as anyone else when Alice triumphantly announced that the murder had been committed by Reverend Green in the library with the candlestick.

But it was fun. It was actually fun. She smiled when Chloe got excited about guessing her first clue, and she and Kilgrave shared a look.

"You know what," said Kilgrave. "I have a feeling this is all gonna work out."

* * *

The letter ruined it.

It was the morning of the day that she was due to meet Trish at the airport. She'd memorised the details: Terminal 5, 19:50. Trish had told her to meet two hours before the flight, which meant she had to get to Heathrow for around six pm.

Kilgrave was in the shower. She didn't have long. She tore a page out of a notebook in Alice's desk drawer and tried to imagine that she was a tragic figure in a doomed romance novel, the sort of heroine who would nobly step aside and sacrifice her relationship for the sake of familial love.

Or some bullshit like that.

The letter read as follows:

 _Kilgrave,_

 _I've been thinking about this all night. You found a family here. You, Alice and Chloe. I can see it already, how happy they make you. This is your chance for a better life, for a home, for a family. I think you should take it._

 _I don't fit into this story. I see that now. I'm only dragging you down. I don't want to ruin your chances of happiness so that's why by the time you read this, I'll be gone. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. It's time I made my own home._

 _Please know that I'll always treasure the time we spent together._

 _I love you._

 _Jessica_

She folded up the letter and put it on the bed where he couldn't miss it. Then she threw on her coat, swiped Alice's handbag and purse… and walked right into Kilgrave returning to the bedroom.

In hindsight, she should have spent less time composing that letter.

"Jessica!" She'd startled him. "What are you doing?"

"Leaving," she said, because it was too late to do anything else. "Out of my way."

She shoved him aside and _ran_ – across the hallway, to the top of the stairs–

"Andrew!" he yelled. "Get out here, stop Jessica now!"

She was taking the stairs two at a time when she heard Andrew's lumbering form behind her. He threw himself down the stairs and she smacked into the floor with Andrew's full weight on top of her. Her ribs crunched. She was winded and Andrew still hadn't finished; he shifted, pressing his hands against her shoulder blades to pin her down.

That hurt. That hurt quite a lot.

Kilgrave appeared at the top of the staircase. She could just see his bare feet from her vantage point. "'By the time you read this, I'll be gone.'" His voice quivered in anger. "We were doing well! We were doing well and you pull a stunt like this? Andrew, get up. If Jessica walks out, bash your head against that wall. Alice! Where are you, Alice?"

If she didn't act quickly, he'd make the entire household move against her. Jessica coughed as Andrew's weight left her back, picking herself up as fast as she could. The world twisted in a dizzying blur and she swayed on her feet.

Then she heard Chloe.

"Dad! No!"

The girl must have rushed out of her bedroom. Through watery eyes Jessica saw her catch Kilgrave's wrist, Kilgrave turning to shake her off.

"Don't hurt him!"

Kilgrave opened his mouth – and then stopped. Spluttered. Turned pale, Chloe gripping his wrist for dear life. Jessica watched in complete disbelief as he collapsed at the top of the stairs, head lolling. Chloe was breathing hard, in shock. She lifted her hands and stared at them.

One of those hands had gripped Kilgrave and… done something? Drained the life out of him?

Jessica could hardly breathe. "Is he dead?"

She was aware of Andrew standing at the foot of the staircase next to her, ready to obey Kilgrave's last order. But if Kilgrave was dead, then did that mean…

"What's going on?"

That was Alice, coming out of the lounge and into the hallway to stare up at the scene.

"I don't know," said Chloe, still staring at her hands. "I don't…"

Kilgrave stirred. Her eyes snapped back up to him as a small groan left his lips. Not dead then. She should have known.

She'd already stayed too long.

"I'm sorry," said Jessica. "Get out if you can."

Then she turned on her heel and fled.


	14. everything has a price

**xiv. everything has a price**

She had nothing of her own. No phone, no wallet, no money. Even her clothes were stolen, gifts from Kilgrave. There were the files from IGH too, a little battered, the corners of the envelope bent, but intact. She kept those. Other than that, nothing.

She dug out the change in Alice's purse and used it to get a bus ride to Leeds train station.

Then she realised that she couldn't buy a ticket from any of the machines because they required entering a PIN.

Jessica looked around the station and thought seriously about mugging someone.

Maybe she'd be able to use Alice's card at the ticket booth. She joined the line, her heart thumping, and looked up at the departure screen. The time was 9.56. Eight hours to go.

"Single to London, please."

The man at the booth flashed a smile at her. "Sure. Is that to London King's Cross?"

"Sure," she said, not caring.

"Ninety eight pounds please."

She didn't have anywhere near that amount in cash. British trains were expensive. She tried swiping Alice's card to no effect.

"Ah, contactless only works if it's under thirty pounds," the man said helpfully. "Would you like to insert your card…?"

The device required entering a PIN. Jessica bit back a frustrated sigh and put on her best idiot tourist expression instead. "Oh, gee, I'm sorry! I didn't know that's how it works around here. I can never remember what my PIN is, can you get me a cheaper ticket? Doesn't have to get me to London, just as close as you can get for under thirty pounds."

"Oh," said the man, frowning slightly. "Sure... I can get you a ticket to Nottingham for twenty three pounds fifty?"

"Is that near to London?"

"Not really. You'll have to go in stages."

She could have asked to buy the other tickets she needed as separate transactions but he already looked suspicious and she didn't want to push her luck. Jessica shrugged and bought the ticket.

From Nottingham she bought a ticket to Peterborough. From Peterborough she travelled to Stevenage. And from Stevenage, finally, she got on a train that took her to London King's Cross.

She knew she was travelling south. Other than that she only had the vaguest idea of what she was doing. The landscape got less industrial as she went on, the stations a little less grubby. She avoided looking at anyone else, wished that she could play music to block the world out. Her ribs hurt. She ignored that too.

What had happened back there?

She couldn't help but dwell on it, replaying the scene in her mind's eye. Chloe had demonstrated some kind of ability, she was sure of it. Something that had incapacitated Kilgrave.

Had they been able to stop him? Could they have escaped? She'd bolted out of the house without looking back and no one had followed her. Best case scenario: Alice and Chloe had stopped Andrew from bashing his head through the wall and Chloe had used her powers to subdue Kilgrave, maybe even kill him. Worst case scenario: Kilgrave had recovered, Andrew was dead and Alice and Chloe were back under Kilgrave's control. Once he knew what Chloe could do, he wouldn't give her another opportunity to jump him.

She didn't believe that Kilgrave was dead. The train was approaching London which meant she was as far away from him as she had ever been, and yet he still felt close.

She recalled the disappointment in his voice. _"We were doing well!"_

 _You were doing well. I never did._

They entered a tunnel and the clattering of the train running over the tracks magnified in her ears. The world turned dark.

Kilgrave whispered in her ear: _"You abandoned us."_

 _I made my choice. There was nothing I could do._

 _"_ _You abandoned_ them _. Threw them to the wolves, didn't you? Well, one wolf. You don't really think I'll be a good father, do you? I'll eat them alive."_

A shudder ran through her and she squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't think about them, couldn't think about what she had left behind. It was too dangerous.

London was unmistakable: a sprawling, urban mess. The journey didn't end there. She got on the Underground for the last part, letting her mind go blank while the train rushed through the dark.

She arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 at 5.02pm, exhausted, sweaty and hungry. She collapsed on a seat by the airline desks.

And that was how Trish found her.

* * *

She remembered it vividly. The moment when finally, finally, she saw Trish by the airline desks, ran to her and gave Trish the tightest hug that anyone had ever given anyone else in the world.

"I don't know how to describe what I felt when I saw you. I felt like the princess in the tower guarded by a dragon and you were the knight coming to rescue me. And you know I hate to be the princess."

Trish's eyes were soft. "Well, you know I don't mind being the knight."

Trish, her knight in shining armour, ready with her flight tickets and her passport. They'd made it.

Jessica looked down. "I must have cost you thousands of dollars. Not to mention breaking the law."

"I don't mind. Jess. I don't mind. The money doesn't mean anything. The only thing that matters is that you're here and you're safe."

"I'm here," she said. "But I'm not safe."

* * *

It had been two weeks. At first she had been too exhausted, too ill, to do anything. Trish said it was jetlag. She didn't think that was true.

She told Trish in a dull voice that she had no cell phone, no credit card, no personal belongings and that she was probably hundreds if not thousands of dollars in debt.

Trish swung into action on her behalf. "I'll pay off your debt," she said.

"No, you shouldn't–"

"Jess, I'm doing this. I won't take no for an answer. If I can't spend my money on helping you, what good am I to anyone?"

With Trish's help, she cancelled all her cards, her cell phone, changed her bank. Trish took her to the apartment she'd rented with Kilgrave in Hell's Kitchen and had a long argument with the greasy-fingered landlord. It was here she realised why she'd run out of money. He'd never stopped charging her rent.

"Hey, you never said you left," he said. "I assumed you were on a long vacation."

"Fuck you," said Jessica.

"Well, that was unpleasant," said Trish after they'd walked out. "I can't believe they let crooks like that run property in Manhattan, it's a disgrace."

"Yeah," she replied, not listening. She was too busy eyeing everyone they passed on the street. Kilgrave had procured that apartment. If he had followed her to New York or if he was having her watched, this place would be on his radar.

"Anyway, that's the last thing on the list. We're done. A clean slate."

A man walking by lifted his phone to snap a picture and Jessica flinched.

"Hey. Jess." Trish stopped in front of her and Jessica had to stop too. "Are you listening? I've restarted your life for you and you've barely said a word. I'm not asking for a thank you but at some point we have to talk about this. What did Kilgrave do to you?"

Her mouth wobbled. She hadn't told Trish anything. "It's a long story."

* * *

And so here they were at last, the two of them in Trish's apartment, Jessica huddled under a blanket, Trish sitting opposite her on the couch. The end of her story. She'd told Trish everything. Her eyes were dry, her throat hoarse. Telling the story had been like reliving it. It hurt.

"Why aren't you safe?" Trish asked. "Because of Kilgrave? Because of IGH?"

"Both," she said. "I don't know."

"It's been two weeks. Nothing has happened. If he was telling the truth about IGH, don't you think they would have come for you by now?"

"I don't know."

There was nothing more to say. The adrenaline that had gotten her back to New York had faded. She'd had the idea that she would investigate IGH, get them before they got her, but now that she was here she didn't know where to start.

She'd walked around Manhattan like a stranger.

It wasn't the city that had changed. She had. She looked at every street corner like it might twist up and bite her, had to stop in a crowded square and catch her breath because she felt like she was wading through shark-infested waters. Any one of these people could be a spy sent by Kilgrave. Those tourists snapping photos. The stall owners selling their wares. The teenagers shopping for souvenirs.

She didn't know that he would come after her. But she couldn't imagine that he wouldn't. And then there was IGH…

Maybe the easiest thing to do was let them come.

"Jess."

Trish had been silent for a while. Jessica looked up. "What?"

"I think you should see a therapist."

Her heart sank. "No – no, I don't want a shrink. Those bullshit snake oil merchants. No."

"You need help. I'll do what I can, but you need a trained professional to get you through this."

Get her through this? After everything she'd been through already?

"I need help," she repeated. "I can't do anything on my own. I'm crazy and broken and depressed, right, Trish?"

"Everyone needs help once in a while. I needed it. I went through rehab and I came out stronger. You helped me back then too."

"And now I can't help anyone. Not even myself."

"But you can get to a place where you can. You need to, for everyone's sake. Kilgrave is… He's a monster, Jess. He's to blame for all of this. And if we don't stop him he'll keep on hurting people. How many women has he preyed on?"

"He's probably doing it right now," she muttered. "Alice…"

God, Alice. And her daughter too. She'd left them at his mercy. She was a monster.

"Right – that poor woman and her daughter, they can't say no to him. But you can. You can stop him."

"I can't. I couldn't."

"You can! He can't control you."

She shook her head. Trish still didn't get it. "Haven't you listened to anything I've been telling you? He got into my head. He made me the villain."

"That's where a therapist could help. If you were prepared to face him…"

"I don't want to face him. I didn't go through hell getting away from him so that I could see him again. If he comes for me… I don't know what I'll do."

It was the possibility that had haunted her the moment she had arrived. She hadn't really gotten away from him if she was jumping at shadows, had she? He was still in her head. Still a whisper away, a word in other people's mouths. Anyone could be him.

"I understand how you feel." Trish's face was resolute. "But that doesn't mean we let him get away with this."

"We? He's after me, not you."

Once Trish set her sights on a particular goal, it was very hard to dissuade her. But she didn't know. She'd heard Jessica's story but that wasn't the same as living it. The closest she'd come to being affected by Kilgrave had been when he'd shut down her questions at the dinner table. That was nothing.

Trish leaned forward, her eyes softening. "Look, the first step to recovery is admitting the problem. You've done that. You can get back on the right track."

"This isn't an addiction, Trish, it isn't drugs or alcohol. This is me. The problem is me, my head. I can't go clean for a few weeks and say job done. What if I'm… what if I'm fundamentally fucked up in the head? What if I'm broken?"

She'd had enough of herself left to follow one last urge: to run. Fight or flight. Basic survival instincts.

Now… She felt drained. Boneless.

"You are not broken," said Trish firmly. "I don't believe that. I don't believe that anyone is fundamentally broken. We can all get better, if we try."

She gave Trish a look. "Even Kilgrave?"

Trish sighed. "I don't know. You know what, forget him. Let's focus on you. You come first."

She swallowed. "I thought after everything I told you, you'd hate me. You'd realise what a shitty person I really am."

"We've all done bad things. But I love you. I'll always love you, no matter what."

Oh.

She wanted to make a crack about Trish being sappy or something like that. Instead her eyes welled up. "I… I feel so alone. I was all alone, Trish. I was trapped in that shithole for months and no one gave a shit, not even you."

Trish stared at her, teary-eyed too. She got up and came over to join Jessica on the couch, pulling over the blanket to cover both of them.

"I'm here now." Trish hugged her and Jessica let herself be enveloped by her embrace. "You're not alone."

She snuffled into Trish's shoulder. God, she was a mess. She hadn't been comforted by anyone other than Kilgrave in far too long and hearing those words from Trish… It was too much.

They settled down on the couch like that, with Jessica resting her head on Trish's shoulder, and lapsed into companionable silence. It was after midnight. Her eyes drooped. She should probably call it a night…

 _"_ _So you'll be sleeping alone again."_

She froze.

 _"_ _Or not. You haven't been sleeping well, have you? Why don't you tell Trish what you've been dreaming about too?"_

"I'm going to bed," said Jessica abruptly, getting up.

Trish blinked at her. "Oh – Jess, wait. I was thinking…"

She paused, but impatiently; the back of her neck was prickling and she didn't like it. "What?"

"About making sure that you're safe. If IGH really want to kill you, or if Kilgrave comes back–"

Jessica cut her off. "I don't wanna think about it."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't have a solution, Trish. Because it took everything I had in me to get here and admit to you all the bad things I've done and now I'm done. I'm tired. Can we figure this out tomorrow?"

Trish nodded. "Sure."

She looked tired too, Jessica thought. Despite offering her unconditional support, she'd heard things that must have shocked her.

They headed off to bed. She didn't expect to sleep well.

* * *

She was still tired when she got up, but it had to be done. Jessica shuffled into the kitchen in her vest top and shorts to find Trish in her smart blazer and matching pencil skirt grabbing her handbag and keys.

Jessica stopped short, frowning. "Wait. Did I get my days mixed up? I didn't think you had a show today."

"I don't," said Trish briskly, turning away. "I… I have a business meeting to attend."

It was Trish's refusal to look at her more than anything else that raised her suspicions. "What kind of a business meeting?"

"Just with a colleague. We're discussing some ideas for the show."

"What colleague?"

Trish was touching up her lipstick in the mirror. "Does it matter? Why are you prying?"

"Why?" She couldn't believe Trish was asking that. "Kilgrave, that's why. Do you think I don't worry every second of every day that he might be controlling you? Do you think I haven't been watching you for any kind of suspicious behaviour? This right here is suspicious. This isn't normal for you."

She gestured at Trish's get-up. Okay, so those were the kind of clothes she wore for work but her behaviour was definitely shady.

Trish stared at her and then dropped her handbag back down on the counter. "Oh my God, you're right. I'm sorry. I didn't think…" She exhaled. "I'll tell you but only if you promise not to get mad, okay?"

Trish told her. Jessica got mad.

"Your _mother_? No. You cannot be serious."

Trish wanted to install the latest security system in their apartment, turn it into a fortress. And she wanted to hire security guards around the clock to provide twenty-four-seven protection. Safeguards against IGH, Kilgrave or any of his minions. The only problem was, security like that didn't come cheap and after all the money she'd spent on getting Jessica's life back together, even Trish didn't have enough to spare before her next paycheck.

So she had decided to ask her mother.

"She still makes a lot of income from Patsy royalties," Trish argued. "At least half of that money is mine anyway–"

"No."

"Do you have a better idea?"

Jessica hesitated. It was her fault that Trish was having to contemplate begging her mother for help in the first place.

"This is a bad idea," she said. "She'll use it as an opportunity to get her claws into you again, you know that."

"I know, but…" Trish shrugged. "I have to decide which risk I'm willing to take. And I'd rather deal with my mother than have to face you getting shot by some shady organisation or me being controlled by Kilgrave."

She couldn't argue with that. She didn't like it, but she couldn't argue with it.

"Fine," she said. "But if you're going to see your mom, then I'm coming with you. You're not facing her alone."

"All right," said Trish. "You'd better put on some pants."

* * *

Dorothy Walker owned a talent agency that promised to shoot promising young actors and performers to stardom. Her greatest accomplishment was her own daughter. Walking into her home was like stepping into a shrine to Patsy. The walls were adorned with Patsy posters; the awards displayed on the mantelpiece were all prizes won by Dorothy's most lucrative star. Patsy was the child star with red hair and a beaming smile, who sang, danced and frolicked her way into children's hearts.

"You didn't say you were inviting _her_ ," was the first thing Dorothy said upon opening the door.

"Tough," Jessica said. "You've got me."

"To my eternal regret," said Dorothy, but she let them in anyway, Trish clutching her handbag to her side.

Dorothy air-kissed and hugged her daughter, Trish bearing this with strained politeness. She ignored Jessica, who was used to this treatment and set herself down on the couch without being invited.

"It's good to see you, Patsy," said Dorothy. "I've missed you so much. Do you want some coffee?"

"Oh – sure," said Trish distractedly. She gave Jessica a look. Jessica didn't say anything. She was here to supervise and make sure that Dorothy didn't take advantage of Trish's predicament. She'd been a successful barrier for the last two years, ever since Trish had gone clean, and before that too when things had been messier she had made it her business to remind Dorothy not to bully her daughter.

She had the feeling Dorothy would need reminding today.

"Milk, no sugar, just how you like it," Dorothy said, bringing over a tray with three cups of coffee on it. She offered Trish hers and then placed the tray down on the coffee table without bothering to look at Jessica.

"Thank you, Mother."

"Thanks, Mom," said Jessica sarcastically, taking the coffee herself.

"Well," said Dorothy, sitting down with her hands clasped in her lap, "the two of you here to see me is a rare occasion. I assume something is going on. Something to do with your trip to London?"

Trish was startled. "How do you know about that?"

"What, you think I don't pay attention? You missed a show to go there and you never miss a show. Always so responsible. What happened there? Who did you go to see? If you'd come to me earlier, I could have hooked you up with some of my contacts–"

"That's not what I'm here to talk about," Trish interrupted.

"Oh? Then what?"

"I have a stalker. Or rather, I had a stalker. I think they're gone now but I want to upgrade the security around my apartment, in case they come back."

"Oh," said Dorothy, who didn't look concerned so much as she was putting on her patented concerned face. Her skin was too stretched to wrinkle; she'd had Botox again. "Well, that is an occupational hazard, you wouldn't believe some of the fan mail we get for you. I always thought that Jessie was your bodyguard. Isn't that why you let her freeload off of you?"

"I protect her from you," Jessica corrected her.

"Yes, there she goes. I'm her mother. She doesn't need protecting from me."

"Mother." Trish held up a hand. "Jessica does look out for me but what I'm looking for is professional help. I'm talking around the clock guards with guns who are trained to shoot to kill if necessary. I want two on rotation at my apartment and one to drive me to work and anywhere else I might want to go."

"Well, that's a lovely idea," said Dorothy, "but I don't know why you're coming to me about it unless you want some advice on a private contractor to employ?"

Trish took a breath. "I want you to pay for it."

Jessica stopped with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. Dorothy raised an eyebrow and there was a very pregnant pause. There would be all manner of machinations going on in that woman's head, Jessica knew that. She never missed a trick.

"I must be missing something," said Dorothy finally, putting down her coffee. "Why ask me to pay for it?"

"Because I'm your daughter," said Trish, "and I need your help."

"You're also a big girl with a moderately successful radio show who repeatedly and loudly told the world's media that I would never be your manager again, and I quote, that you would die before accepting another dime from me. If you want more security, hire it yourself, you're perfectly capable."

Another pause. Trish looked down; Jessica swallowed. Dorothy looked between them.

"You don't have the money?" She shook her head. "You're not doing drugs again, are you?"

"No!" said Trish. "No, I'm clean. I just… I have a small shortfall between now and next month and I want to get that security ASAP."

"What, did you overspend on your London trip? Boob job? Nose job? You really should consider it, especially the boob job, it'd do wonders for your chances of getting on screen and not just on the air where no one can see you – really, you're so pretty, it's such a waste–"

"No, Mother," said Trish tightly. "I didn't get a boob job, or any other type of surgery and I don't plan to. I need twelve thousand dollars. The rest I can cover myself."

"Twelve thousand?" Dorothy was enjoying this, she knew it. "Well, that's a lot to ask…"

"You can afford it. And half the royalties you get should be mine, you screwed me over on that and you know it–"

"Oh, shut up!" Dorothy snapped, standing up. "You signed the contract. Don't tell me I don't deserve every penny I earn. You're still riding Patsy's coattails. If anything you owe me money for _Trish Talk_."

Jessica stood up, at once ready to get in her adoptive mom's face. "Back off."

"It's okay." Trish put a hand on Jessica's shoulder. "Loan me the money then, I'll pay you back."

Dorothy sniffed. "You come in here asking for money and you haven't even asked me how I am. Do you know I've had a terrible year? A friend of mine died of lung cancer, I had an awful ear infection, and my house was broken into. Maybe I'm the one who should be investing in extra security."

Jessica frowned at her. "Your house was broken into?"

This was typical Dorothy bullshit, deflecting and complaining about her own life while bemoaning her daughter's shortcomings. It was probably nothing.

Probably.

"Like you care." Dorothy's lip curled. "You already broke down my door once and you never paid me for that."

"If I'd broken in, you'd have known it was me. I would have made sure of it."

And she had, the last time she'd done it. Some people only listened to threats and intimidation. Her adoptive mother happened to be one of them.

"So you were burgled?" Trish asked. "When did this happen?"

Dorothy shrugged. "Last October. I thought it was kids playing pranks. They didn't take anything of value anyway. Just a few old documents."

October… That was when she had started her job at Luke's bar, much to Kilgrave's disquiet.

"Documents?" Jessica asked. "What documents?"

"Medical records. Yours, from the hospital when we adopted you."

For a moment, Jessica couldn't speak. Trish stared at her mother. "And you didn't think to tell Jessica?"

Dorothy shrugged again. "Why should I? They were old, nothing valuable. Maybe if you hadn't stopped talking to me, I would have brought it up sooner."

Medical records. In that same month she and Kilgrave had been kidnapped by the men from IGH. He'd given her the medical records that they had stolen. He'd claimed to have found them in the kidnappers' car…

Jessica's tongue unstuck from the roof of her mouth. "Did you talk to a British man around that time? Tall, white, brown hair, probably wearing a purple suit?"

"That's a very specific description. It was a while ago, I'm not sure I remember. What is this about?"

Jessica swallowed. She and Trish looked at each other, and then Trish stepped forward. "Mother, could you give us a minute?"

Dorothy was many things, but she wasn't dumb. Her eyes were sharp as she looked between the two of them and then she nodded. "Okay."

She collected their coffee mugs, put them back on the tray and headed out of the lounge, leaving Jessica and Trish alone.

"She knows something," said Jessica at once.

Trish nodded, sitting down, and gestured for Jessica to join her. "Quiet, she'll be eavesdropping. What do you think happened?"

"I don't know but I need to get the full story. I need to know if Kilgrave was involved."

Trish bit her lip. "That's two favours we're asking from her. We'll have to offer her something in return."

She was right. Dorothy Walker was not the sort of woman who would help her daughters out of the goodness of her heart.

So it turned out.

Dorothy came back in with a smile and a sickly-sweet tone of concern, and she got what she wanted. "You can have your twelve thousand dollars," she said, "and you can pay it back with some good honest work."

Trish was resigned to her fate. "Please don't make me put on that wig again."

"Of course not. You can do some commercials, a sponsorship deal. Get your face out there again."

"And my medical records?" Jessica asked.

"As a matter of fact, I did talk to someone about them. A very charming young man, very handsome. If I tell you, I want you to keep out of the way of me seeing my daughter. I want access to Patsy. Not every day, I'm not that overbearing. But I want to see her without my life being threatened."

Jessica looked at Trish, who nodded. This was the lesser of two evils. "One month," she said harshly. "That's all you get. And if I don't like the way you're treating her, I will step in."

"Fine," said Dorothy primly. "Well. The man I talked to was a journalist. He was British, like you said. Lovely accent. I thought he was going to talk to me about Patsy, but he seemed more interested in you, Jessie. Isn't that funny? I didn't give anything away of course and no story appeared in the paper about you. I checked. But he wanted to know about the accident that killed your family and I happened to mention that I had your medical records at home."

"And this break-in, did it happen the same night?"

"It happened the same day," said Dorothy. "I arrived home to find my files a mess and your records missing."

"So you didn't see who broke in? Did you report it?"

She shook her head. "It wasn't important enough to warrant reporting. Maybe that journalist was looking for dirt about us but he wouldn't have found any. Everything we did was completely above-board."

"Can you remember when this happened?" Jessica asked. "The exact date?"

"Hmm." Dorothy checked her phone. "It was the day before I fired that useless secretary, so the sixteenth."

Jessica sucked in a breath. That was it. The same day that she'd started her job at Luke's bar. That night she had been kidnapped. Which meant…

"Aren't you going to explain what's going on?" Dorothy asked. "I've told you everything I know."

"It's none of your business," said Jessica, rising to her feet. She had to get out of here. "Come on, Trish."

"I'll see you on Monday!" Dorothy called after them.

They caught a taxi back home. Her heart raced as she put the pieces together. Reminding herself of what had happened that night, how Kilgrave had rescued her, how he'd presented the IGH papers as proof of where the two men were from…

It was all bullshit.

It had to be. If the files were the same ones that had been stolen from Dorothy, then they didn't belong to the two kidnappers at all. Kilgrave had stolen them. He'd stolen them and he'd planted them on the kidnappers and the only possible reason he could have for doing that was…

They were back in Trish's apartment, Jessica sitting cross-legged on the floor with the IGH papers spread out in front of her. A lump rose in her throat.

"Well, Mother confirmed it," said Trish, who had sent pictures of the documents for Dorothy to check. "She recognised the envelope. These are the same files."

"They weren't from IGH." She was sure of it now. "Kilgrave set the whole thing up. We'd had an argument, I broke it off with him… This conspiracy with Simon and Marco, the kidnapping…"

"He made it up," Trish finished. She looked up at Jessica. "All of it? Marco being his inside man, IGH wanting to kill you…"

"Marco's probably dead. That was his original story. He made him drive his car into the river."

And Simon… The barn. The rifle. The gunshot. She'd let that happen. She'd made that happen. All because she was too stupid to see through Kilgrave's lies.

Her mouth twisted. "They were innocent. Kilgrave was controlling them all along."

Which meant that she hadn't helped Kilgrave to defend them against two bad guys.

She'd helped him to commit murder.


	15. i have to protect myself, so

**xv. i have to protect myself, so**

"You know that security means nothing to Kilgrave, right?" Jessica said while she watched the tech guys upgrading Trish's security system. She had a video camera and screen installed in her door so that she could see exactly who was approaching the apartment. "He'll take control of any guard in a second."

"Not if they can't hear him," said Trish.

"A deaf security guard? There is literally no market for that."

"Not deaf, necessarily," said Trish, folding her arms, "although that wouldn't be a bad idea. They can wear ear plugs. If they're listening to music, they won't be able to hear Kilgrave's commands. It'll make them less effective in normal circumstances, but for Kilgrave… it might just work."

She had to admit, she was impressed. Trish had thought about this. She was planning to give every one of her guards a detailed description of Kilgrave and instructions to shoot on sight if she ever tried to go off with a man fitting that description. It would limit her dating pool, she joked, but better safe than sorry.

"Speaking of dating," said Jessica, flopping back on the couch, "weren't you seeing someone? I need to vet anyone you come into contact with."

Trish shook her head. "I was, but not anymore. I had to keep some secrets from him and he didn't like that, so we broke up."

"Oh," she said. Well, shit. "You mean secrets about me."

So it was her fault. One more thing to add to the pile of crap she'd dumped on Trish.

Trish must have read the guilt in her face. "Don't blame yourself. I wasn't that into him. If a guy can't take me doing my own thing for a while, he's not worth keeping around." She shrugged. "He thought I was cheating on him. The trip to London was the breaking point."

She turned back to the tech guys who seemed to have finished with their software patches. Jessica watched them head out, Trish closing the door after them. Reinforced door, security cameras, alarms, guards… The place was a fortress. Trish had thought of everything.

"I've also hired a personal trainer," said Trish, coming over to sit down with her. "He'll be teaching me self-defence. Krav Maga. You want in?"

Jessica looked at her. "I don't exactly need it."

"You're strong, but you've never had any training. Maybe it'll help."

She wasn't sure how to respond. "Trish… You want me to be ready, I get it. But Kilgrave isn't… That's not how he operates. You can't stop him by learning martial arts or whatever. If he gets hold of you…"

That was her biggest fear. It had taken a long time for her to fully understand Kilgrave's capacity to hurt people. If he had any boundaries he wouldn't cross, she hadn't seen them. She'd thought that she could rein him in, that he'd be okay as long as they were together, but now…

"It's not just about stopping Kilgrave." Trish's expression was earnest. "It's about giving you the space to move on. Peace of mind for both of us."

She cracked a smile, because if she didn't she might have cried instead. "I'm just glad that you're safe."

Trish smiled back. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm okay."

* * *

 _But you're not okay, are you?_

Her thoughts were worst at night. No distractions, nothing to do but toss and turn and try not to think. It was too hot; she flung off the covers. It was too cold; she huddled under them again.

She wasn't fine. She wasn't okay.

 _You're not safe. Trish isn't safe. Every second you're here, you're putting her in danger._

She was a coward. She'd always been a coward. She'd learned that she was responsible for the deaths of two innocent people and she felt numb about it. Her head pounded. She was wide awake, head buried in her pillow, and she might as well have been hollow for all the feelings she could muster up.

She felt shit about it, about not caring for others. But it was the kind of shitty feeling that made her feel worse about herself. Her mood spiralled downwards, the bad days piling up until she forgot what a good day looked like. Until feeling shit about herself was normal and a good day was a not-quite-as-shit-as-the-rest day.

 _You should leave. Get out._

Running away was supposed to help. She had gotten away from Kilgrave and she could do whatever she wanted. She could start again, do something new.

She could run from Kilgrave.

She couldn't run from her own head.

 _She doesn't want you here anyway. Haven't you done enough?_

She couldn't tell if it was her voice or Kilgrave's anymore. They were the same.

* * *

She was supposed to be seeing the therapist. Instead she was huddled in front of the TV watching trashy soap operas wearing leggings and an old T-shirt that belonged to Trish. She'd brushed Trish off whenever she'd asked about the sessions, pretending that it was fine. It was fine. It was all fine.

Trish was off shooting the shitty commercial for her mother. Bottled water that could help save children in Africa. A great cause and perfect for the Patsy brand.

Whatever. She hadn't eaten anything except a crappy cereal bar all day. The wrapper was still on the table, along with a bottle of tequila.

Jessica was pouring the last of the tequila when the doorbell sounded and her heart froze. She got up. It was like this every day, even when she knew it was Trish, when she was expecting Trish. Someday she would have to stop being paranoid. Kilgrave hadn't returned. It had been long enough that she was starting to wonder whether he would return, whether she'd imagined the strength of his feelings for her.

Out of sight, out of mind. If only she could say the same.

The screen on the door showed that it was Trish and Jessica let her in. "You're late."

Trish rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, the director was an ass. Remind me never to ask my mother for help again."

"You shouldn't need reminding."

She walked away to get rid of the empty tequila bottle, though not before Trish had clocked it, her mouth thinning.

"Are you hungry?" Trish asked. "I'm starving."

They ate egg noodles for dinner. Trish was a much better cook than she used to be. Jessica said nothing, keeping her head down, but she could sense Trish's eyes on her.

"How was your session?" Trish asked.

"Fine."

"Really." Trish folded her arms. "Because I called the therapist. He said you missed your appointment."

Oh. Busted.

She looked up and met the force of Trish's disapproval and disappointment, like she'd kicked a puppy or something.

Jessica lifted her hands. "I was busy."

Trish scoffed. "Busy doing what? Day drinking? Forgetting to shower? You stink of booze."

"I had to decide which would help me more. Therapist or booze. I chose booze."

"Then you chose wrong."

"Well, that's nothing new."

They stared at each other. Trish's frustration was palpable; she could see it in the way her jaw clenched, the look in her eyes. Jessica downed the glass of water that Trish had gotten for her, which was weird after all the tequila.

Trish rubbed her eyes. "Why didn't you go see the therapist?"

She shrugged. "I thought about it. I thought about what I would have to say and I didn't want to say it again. I shouldn't be in therapy, I should be in jail."

"You didn't kill those men, Jess. Kilgrave did."

She shook her head. "I should have questioned him. I should have told him, this isn't right. Everyone else has an excuse: Kilgrave made them do it. Not me. I'm responsible for all the things I didn't do… and all the things I did."

All the things she couldn't talk about in therapy, not really. She'd had to lie and twist her story because bringing their powers into it was too complicated and God, the thought of going through it all again was exhausting.

Her mouth wobbled.

It was guilt; guilt was the problem. She didn't need therapy to figure that one out. She felt like she had a giant ton of shit hanging above her head and she couldn't look at it or she'd be buried.

"That's exactly why you need to process this," Trish said. "We don't have much time."

"You said I could take all the time I needed."

"Yes, as long as you use it! Kilgrave is the one who should be in jail and you can put him there, but you need to get your head together."

"No pressure then. Thanks, Trish."

She'd seen Trish bite her lip more than once, had guessed at what was going through her head. It must be so easy in Trish's mind to be a big damn hero. How many opportunities to knock Kilgrave out and hand him over to the police had she wasted? Trish would have done a much better job.

"Jess, I didn't mean–"

"There were times when he made me feel good," she interrupted. She had to let Trish know what a screw-up she was. "Did you forget that? I felt _good_ , better than I do now. I miss that."

Trish sucked in a breath. "You miss him?"

"Yeah." She looked at Trish, expecting to see disappointment in her eyes. Yep, there it was. "I miss him. It's not logical, I know that. He's such a piece of shit."

How much time did she have to untangle all this? The couple of sessions that she'd had, she could barely see where to start. Trish wanted her to save Alice and Chloe. She knew that. She didn't need Trish to say it to know that.

But that was the thing about depression: it was inherently selfish. It was so inward-looking, so mired in its own misery that the human consumed by it lost the ability to help anyone else.

How could she pull others away from the brink when she was teetering there herself?

Trish's voice softened. "He really did a number on you."

" _Life_ did a number on me, Trish. It wasn't just Kilgrave. I was in a bad place when I met him and I'm in a worse place now."

"You weren't in a bad place when you met him," Trish argued. "You were happy, you were looking forward to making a difference."

She snorted. "Right. Look where that got me."

"It got you here," said Trish. She stood up and there was a fire in her eyes. "Right here, right now where you have a chance to do something and make amends. I know it isn't easy, but you have to try! I am getting so sick of your self-pity. It's selfish and it's boring. There are people out there who are suffering too, Kilgrave is out there, and I don't care what you did with him back then. I care what you do now."

Silence fell. Jessica stared up at her, at her best friend so full of righteous anger. How easy righteous anger was. You could do anything when you felt right, couldn't you?

Her mouth twisted. "You're right. You're always right, it's what you're good at. But you can't do a damn thing about how I feel, so why don't you shove your opinion up your ass and I'll deal with this in my own way. Thanks for the noodles."

She got up, scraping her chair back, and walked out. Trish didn't try to call after her.

* * *

She showered and dressed, scraping a comb through knotty hair. Trish had a point about one thing: she couldn't stay in here feeling sorry for herself. The apartment was closing in on her, the burden of Trish's expectations, her frustration and disappointment too much to bear.

She had to get out.

Fifteen minutes later she emerged from her room and strode past Trish in the lounge without a second glance.

Trish's voice followed her. "Where are you going?"

She didn't look back, throwing on her jacket. "Out. I need to clear my head. Don't wait up."

It was late spring and the night was cool but not cold. Jessica hurried down the street with her hands shoved in her pockets. She was walking on auto-pilot, her senses on alert for anyone acting suspiciously. Claustrophobia indoors, paranoia outdoors. That was her life now.

At some point she realised that her feet had taken her towards Luke's bar. "Shit," she muttered.

She hadn't meant to do that. She stopped, turned around, and found another dive bar a couple of blocks away instead, this one smaller and grimier than Luke's. It smelt of old men, grease and booze. Perfect.

She ordered whiskey, knocked it back, ordered another.

"You had enough?" the bartender asked when she reached her eighth or ninth drink. She'd lost count.

"Just keep 'em coming," she said, not in the mood to chat.

His bushy eyebrows drew together. "You got a ride home? Young lady like you, don't wanna be walking out there on your own."

"I'll take a cab."

Her voice was flat. She turned around on her stool to end the conversation, and found herself face-to-face with another guy drinking a beer instead.

Said guy gave her a wry smile. "Not one for talking, then."

"No," she said shortly.

Damn, she'd come here to get wasted in peace. Why did people keep bothering her? This guy – she looked at him properly – he wasn't bad-looking in a craggy, clean-cut sort of way. His greying hair was swept back and he wore a flannel shirt and jeans. She could imagine him as a cowboy on a ranch. He had the tan for it.

"You drink like a fish," the guy went on. "I'm impressed."

"Thanks."

"Any reason why?"

She knocked back another shot. "I've got a strong constitution."

"Sure. Though you don't look like you're celebrating."

He was taking his time with that beer. Enjoying the drink, she supposed, or maybe he was a tightass. She didn't think so though. The watch on his wrist looked expensive.

"I'm not," she said. And then, since he'd asked, "What about you?"

"Contemplating my divorce."

Ah. She nodded. "Sucks."

That was about as much sympathy as she could offer. She didn't feel like going into her own reasons for being here. The guy seemed to understand or maybe he was thinking about his own shit, since he nodded and took another swig of his beer. He had warm eyes. Friendly.

"I could do with a distraction," she offered after a short pause. "You up for that?"

He looked at her. "Up for what?"

Always in the back of her mind she had to wonder if anyone who talked to her was a spy sent by Kilgrave. Random friendly stranger in a bar could be a random friendly stranger. Entirely possible. But she'd drowned her sorrows enough that she was bored of it and if there was one thing she was sure Kilgrave would never allow his minions to do, it was accept any kind of advance from her.

So this was a test.

She stood up. "Getting out of here."

He didn't need persuading. She led him into a dark alley where there was a hidden alcove behind a dumpster because if she was going to do this, it might as well be behind a dumpster. He wanted to know her name; she wasn't interested.

"Don't waste my time," she told him, fumbling with his belt and zipper.

To his credit, he took her at her word. Hands went to her jeans and with his tall frame silhouetted in front of her he could have been anyone. He didn't try to kiss her. There was only the sound of their breathing, the scrape of fabric on skin, and in the background the noise of the city: traffic, horns blaring, people.

Then the beam of a car light blinded her and for a second she _swore_ she saw purple. His eyes. The smell of his cologne.

She didn't think. She lashed out – shoved with both hands, and next she knew the car was moving past, the lights swinging away from them, and her would-be one night stand had made a dent in the dumpster.

"Shit!"

Her eyes widened. He'd doubled over, wheezing in pain, and…

Fuzzy purple dice hanging above the dashboard. That's what it was. It might not even have been purple.

"I'm sorry!"

She tried to help him, tried to pull him to his feet but he flinched away from her. "You – you're one of _them_!"

His pants were halfway down. He pulled them back up and she shook her head, her voice cracking. "No – come on. I freaked out, but I'm fine, I'm drunk, you fell hard."

It was a jumble of words that made sense in her head, but not when they came out of her mouth. He shook his head. She couldn't see much of his expression, but the backing away told her enough.

"Stay away from me!"

He stumbled, unsteady, but quick to retreat.

"Chickenshit!" she yelled after him. "What, are you scared I might bite your dick off? Asshole."

Too late. He'd made a run for it. She slumped back against the dumpster and buttoned her jeans, frustrated, angry and ashamed. Stupid. She was so stupid.

She didn't remember how she made it back to the apartment. She did remember making it to her bed, shucking off her jeans and thinking of Kilgrave being that silhouette in the dark, entering her room, entering her. He wouldn't have stopped. He wouldn't have run away from her. The mixture of fear and arousal she felt about him shouldn't have been so potent, but it was. She shoved her hand into her underwear and let it consume her.

He was her nightmare. He was her bogeyman.

She was drunk and stupid.

* * *

She dreamed about him again. She dreamed that he told her to kill a man and she did. He put a gun into her hands, a revolver, and she felt its weight, the glint of steel in her palm.

One shot. Bullet between the eyes. A bloody hole.

He took the gun out of her trembling hands. "You'll get a taste for it."

* * *

He was supposed to come for her.

Why hadn't he come for her?

She stared bleary-eyed at her laptop. Another present from Trish. It was ten in the morning, she was day-drinking again, and scouring the news and social media for any sign of Kilgrave-related activity.

The fucker was good at staying under the radar, she had to give him that. The Oxford article was still the only news story about him she'd managed to dig up, and that was from years ago. By his own admission he'd been more careless back then.

The sound of grunts and pants were coming from the room next door. A man and a woman. If she didn't know better she would have thought that Trish had hooked up with a new boyfriend, but she did know better. Trish was in the middle of a training session with her Krav Maga instructor; she had a room specially allocated for it.

Jessica blocked out the noise and scrolled through her news feed.

It hit her like a truck.

A picture, that's all it was. A picture. But the breath died in her lungs, a wave of nausea spreading out from her chest. The picture showed four women in the foreground of a bar, arms around each other's shoulders, dressed up for a night out.

One of them was Fiona.

She read the post hurriedly, her throat catching. The picture had been posted by one of the other women, a mutual friend of theirs from college. Great to catch up, awesome to have the girls back… They were somewhere in Detroit. No comment from Fiona.

She swallowed.

Slowly, Jessica walked to the kitchen to get another drink. As she did so, Trish and her personal trainer emerged from their session. Trish was in her tank top and leggings, sweaty, hair tied back. She had a bruise on her shoulder; she'd encouraged her instructor to go all out.

"Hey, Jess," said Trish. "Carl's just leaving. You okay?"

"Can I get a glass of water?" Carl asked.

"Sure."

Jessica watched the personal trainer guy walk past her to grab a glass from the cupboard. Then she turned back to Trish, crossing her arms over the counter.

"Did you know that Fiona is back in the States?"

Trish blinked. "Fiona? You mean the friend you saw in London?"

"I saw a picture of her in Detroit. Not from her page, she blocked me. Someone else posted it."

"Oh," said Trish. She wiped a strand of hair out of her eyes, still catching her breath. "Yeah, I think she… I think she moved back to Michigan to be with her family."

They were both aware of Carl pouring himself a glass of water. From what little she'd seen of him, he'd always been focused on the job and he didn't seem to be listening, but still, she had to watch what she said.

Jessica frowned. "I thought she was getting married."

Trish shook her head. "She called the wedding off. I saw the comments. It sounded like she was going through a tough time."

"Shit. Shit, that's me."

It had to be. She had the same crawling, cloying feeling she'd had when she'd realised the truth about IGH, the same pang of guilt and horror. She'd tried not to think of Fiona, tried so hard to convince herself that she was fine…

But here was proof. She'd destroyed Fiona's life, like she destroyed everything else she touched. It was all coming back to bite her. The whiskey glass trembled in her hand.

"You don't know that," said Trish. Then she gasped. "Jess!"

She sensed the sudden movement, but didn't have time to do more than turn her head as Carl's fist smashed into her cheek. She staggered back, gasping, dizzy with pain.

"Oh my God!"

Trish dashed around to stop him and Jessica reacted a second later, pulling her back as Carl grabbed a steak knife from the countertop. His face was an implacable mask. The knife glinted in the sunlight.

"Put down the knife or I'm calling the cops," Trish said, her voice shaking. Jessica still had a hand on her shoulder. She stepped in front of Trish and raised her fists, ignoring the sting in her cheek.

"You heard her. Get out."

Carl said nothing. He'd been looking between the two of them, assessing them.

Then he ran at her with the knife.

Trish screamed. Adrenaline surged through her: Jessica grabbed her assailant's arm, the knife whistling past an inch from her face, and then his other fist came up and struck her jaw; she staggered back, wrenching the knife from his grip. He followed up with another punch that set her ears ringing.

Krav Maga was no joke. She was starting to wish she'd taken up Trish's offer.

Trish ran in front of her and tried to shove him back, but Carl picked her up and threw her aside as easily as a doll. She fell back against the couch, the breath knocked out of her.

"Trish!"

He'd pay for that. Enraged, her head full of blood, Jessica met his next attack head-on, shoving him back with enough force to send him tumbling to the floor. That didn't stop him. He kicked out with his foot; she stepped over him and grabbed him bodily, hauling him up with both hands.

"Wake the hell up!"

This wasn't Carl. Trish's personal trainer was tough, yes, a physically fit guy, but also an encouraging and supportive instructor. This wasn't Carl. It was Kilgrave. She only had to look into his eyes for a second to know that he intended to kill her. He gritted his teeth and set his hands around her throat, trying to strangle her. Panic clawed at her; she couldn't breathe. She tore his hands away, staggered back and he still came at her.

It was instinct. It was self-defence.

She drew her hand back into a fist and struck him square on the jaw. There was the dull smack of flesh and bone meeting flesh and bone. The back of his skull met the wall and made a sound like an egg cracking. He collapsed. Fell to the floor.

She stared at the wall and saw blood. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Jess! Is he unconscious?"

She blinked as Trish appeared beside her, trembling but upright. Trish was holding the knife. Jessica shook her head at her and moved forward to crouch down next to Carl. Her head was pounding.

He wasn't moving. Dark eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Blood pooled around his head. With shaking hands, she pressed two fingers against his throat.

No pulse.

Oh, God.

"Jess?" That was Trish behind her, breathless.

Jessica turned around to look up at her. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it."

"Oh my God. Is he…?"

She nodded, feeling numb, then stood back and let Trish examine the body. It was Trish who stated the obvious.

"He's dead."

He was dead. She'd killed him. There could be no argument about it, no doubt. Regardless of Kilgrave's influence, the blood was on her hands.

She was a murderer.


	16. it's better to give him what he wants

**xvi. it's better to give him what he wants**

She recalled very little of what happened next. Like a bad dream, there was no sequence of events that stayed with her. There were flashes, images. And there was the feeling she was left with, a feeling of hollowness, of dirt.

She was on the floor, hugging her hands around her knees. Her cheeks were wet. The blood on the floor was inches away, creeping towards her foot.

Trish called the cops. "This has gone too far," she said. "We need to report it. We're both witnesses, we'll back each other up."

She didn't have the energy to object.

The cops swarmed all over the apartment, took photographs and examined evidence with gloved hands. At some point the body was taken away.

They took her in for questioning. The next time her head cleared she was in a darkened room with one table and three chairs and a detective was asking her if she was all right.

"Yeah," she muttered.

"I'm Detective Clemons," he said, like she cared. He was an old guy, patient. Probably thought he had seen it all before. "You must be Jessica Jones."

"I did it," she said. "I killed him. He's dead because of me."

Clemons frowned. "I haven't asked you a question yet, Ms Jones. Can we take a step back…"

"I killed him," she said. "Why do we have to talk about it? Just put me away."

She wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to shiver. The room was cold. Why hadn't they put any heat into this room?

Clemons sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing them on his sleeve. "Why did you kill him?"

"He attacked me."

"How? Describe what happened." Her lip quivered and he shook his head. "It's all right. Take your time."

"He hit me," said Jessica slowly. "He also grabbed a knife from the kitchen and tried to stab me. I managed to get the knife off him, we got into a fight and I hit him so hard he cracked his head against the wall. That's what killed him."

"That takes a lot of strength."

"I know."

Clemons raised his eyebrows, but she wouldn't be drawn. She didn't budge even when he let the silence stretch out.

"Okay," he said finally. "This man was a personal trainer, yes? Working with your friend Patricia Walker. Do you know why he attacked you? Perhaps you got into an argument."

She shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe he didn't like me."

"That's a poor motive for attempted murder. You have no idea why he'd try to kill you?"

"Nope."

"Well," said Clemons, leaning back in his seat, "that's interesting because Ms Walker tells quite a different story. She believes that her trainer was being mind-controlled; what do you say to that?"

Fucking Trish. Jessica gritted her teeth. "Sounds pretty far-fetched."

"It does," Clemons agreed. "What do you think happened?"

She didn't know why he was pretending to entertain the idea. The police would think they'd come up with a story together; they'd had plenty of time to before the cops arrived. The only question in their minds would be why they'd come up with something as outlandish as mind control. It was impossible to prove. The only person who could say for sure that he had been compelled was Carl, and he was dead.

So she gave the detective a shrug, as if she were a sullen teenager in detention. Before he could press her, the door to the interrogation room opened and they both looked up as a woman stepped in. The newcomer was sharp-eyed, well-dressed, her black hair cropped short and her heels clacking on the floor.

"I hope you haven't started this interview without me, Clemons," she said, taking off her coat. "I'd like to spend five minutes with my client before we begin."

"Hogarth," Clemons said, pausing. Then he stood up and shook his head. "Five minutes."

He departed and Jessica stared up at the woman standing before her. "Who are you?"

"Jeri Hogarth, your attorney." She held out her hand. "I come highly recommended by Trish Walker, in case you were wondering."

Of course. Trish. Any lawyer that Trish hired had to be worth her salt. She shook the lawyer's hand and then shrugged. "You're too late. I already confessed."

Hogarth stared at her, then folded her arms. She was impressively unruffled. "Well, then. We have some work to do."

* * *

They let her go. It wasn't over, she was sure of that. Clemons had asked her again about the mind control and to her relief Hogarth had batted the questions away, dismissing them with a curl of her lip. Jessica couldn't tell whether she thought the idea was bullshit or not, but she supposed for a lawyer that didn't matter.

"Call me," Hogarth told her, handing over a business card. "And no more stories about mind control. It only complicates the case."

"Tell that to Trish," she replied, just as Trish emerged from the entrance of the police station to meet them.

Hogarth departed, leaving them to their waiting car. Trish was busy texting with an increasingly stressed look on her face. Jessica cleared her throat and she got in the car, shaking her head.

"Sorry. Mother got wind of what happened and I've already got the media breathing down my neck." She craned her head back at the police station as they drove off. "I'm surprised no one was waiting. I guess the location didn't get out, at least."

"Fame's a bitch," said Jessica dryly.

Personally, she couldn't find it in her to feel too sympathetic about the potential PR disaster that both Trish and Dorothy were undoubtedly worried about. Their driver was one of Trish's guards so theoretically Kilgrave-proof, but that was a small relief in the grand scheme of things.

Kilgrave was here.

It was only a matter of time.

Trish put her phone away and sighed. "I can't believe he's gone. I hired him, we were only on our sixth session… I didn't think that Kilgrave would get to him so easily. How did he know?"

"He must be watching us."

Her tone was flat. It was a relief, in a way, to know that her paranoia was well-founded. The only question in her mind now was how long. How long had Kilgrave been back in New York? How long had he been monitoring her?

Trish leaned back in her seat, blinking a tear out of her eye. "I only thought about becoming stronger, about defending myself. And because I hired him, he…" She shook her head. "I am so stupid."

Because Trish had hired Carl, he'd become a target for Kilgrave. She'd brought a person into her life and that person had died as a result. Jessica recognised that way of thinking.

"You messed up; we all do. That guilt hanging over you… That's how I feel every day." She looked at Trish. "Plus I'm the one who killed him, so you're really not gonna win this pity parade."

"Right." Trish sniffed, wiping her eyes. "Sorry. Look, I've booked a hotel for us since the apartment isn't safe. Guess it wasn't Kilgrave-proof after all."

She'd be beating herself up about that as well but frankly Jessica didn't think that was the problem. "Speaking of Kilgrave… We agreed we'd deal with him ourselves. What the hell were you thinking?"

"We didn't agree, you asked me not to mention him. I disagreed. Anyway, I didn't mention him by name."

Jessica interrupted: "But you had plenty to say about mind control. Jesus, Trish. I told you not to."

"And I disagreed." Trish had her stubborn face on, the one that meant she was sure that she was right.

"You don't get to do that," Jessica told her. "Kilgrave is my problem. I'm the one he's after, I'm the reason he's doing this and I don't want to tell the cops about all the ways he screwed me up." She shook her head. "We shouldn't have gone to the police in the first place."

"You didn't object."

"I was in shock! I killed someone with my bare hands, do you know what that's like?"

She was never going to forget the crack of his skull hitting the wall, the blood pooling around the body like ink… the fact that she had done that. It was the stuff of nightmares.

"No," said Trish, "of course not, but what else was I supposed to do? Dump the body and pretend that nothing happened?"

"Yes! That was an option. This way attracts attention and you're not the only one who doesn't like that."

Kilgrave wouldn't like it either. He certainly wouldn't like that Trish had reported him to the police, even if she hadn't mentioned him by name. The thought made her sick. What would he do? He'd already gotten to Carl; clearly their security measures weren't good enough.

"I was trying to do the right thing," said Trish. "If we covered it up, that would be disrespectful to Carl and his family."

She scoffed. "That's the last thing I care about right now."

"I couldn't act like Carl was the bad guy in all this. He was as innocent as we are."

Trish and her morals. They couldn't afford them. It didn't help that the car interior was so claustrophobic. She wanted to pace around or punch something, anything to get her frustration out.

Instead all she could do was curl her lip. "If you care so much about Carl's innocence, then say I'm the murderer and let them send me to jail."

"You know I would never do that."

"No, but you've screwed us over, Trish. You get that, right? Kilgrave will find out what you told the police and he will punish us."

"Not if we don't let him."

Jessica smiled bitterly, turning away. She couldn't decide whether Trish's optimism was bravery or pure stupidity. No, she could: it was stupidity. Determination meant nothing going up against Kilgrave.

"You have to believe that," said Trish. "If you don't, then he's already won."

She didn't reply. It was pointless. Their thinking was too different: for Trish it was win or lose. But Jessica wasn't there yet. She wasn't thinking about beating Kilgrave or stopping him. She was thinking about surviving him. Protecting Trish from being controlled by him.

They lapsed into silence. Trish's phone buzzed and she took a couple of calls. "They're asking for an emergency meeting at work. I'll blow them off."

Jessica stayed quiet. Trish could handle bad PR; she'd done it before. Life went on, even after you'd killed a man in your own home.

The rest of the drive went by in a blur. When they arrived, Jessica got out of the car, looked up at the hotel entrance and stopped dead.

It was the same hotel she'd stayed in with Kilgrave.

Coincidence?

It couldn't be. Her knees went weak; she felt like she'd been punched in the chest. She had to literally limp over and rest a hand against the wall to stay upright. Trish had waved the driver away; she came over with her suitcase.

"Jess? Are you okay?"

Jessica swallowed. "This hotel. You said you booked it?"

Trish looked at her, then at the sign above the hotel entrance. "Yeah, I did. Come on, I'm dying for a shower."

She turned to go in but Jessica caught her, grabbing her arm. Her ears felt as though they had been filled with hot wax. Her mouth was dry. "No, wait. Trish. Did Kilgrave tell you to bring me here?"

For a moment Trish's brows knitted together. Then the lines on her face smoothed away into a smile. "Oh, you got me. He thought you'd remember. Come on."

White noise filled her head.

That smile. The _It's Patsy_ smile. She wasn't looking at Trish anymore, she was looking at a doll.

"No," she whispered. She had gone beyond fear; this was something else. This was a nightmare come true. "No, Trish, I'll do anything, I'll do anything he wants but please don't hurt yourself."

He could plant trigger commands. She'd seen him do it. He could have told Trish to do anything. One false move by her, one wrong word and she could lose Trish forever.

"Hey, I'm still here," said Trish, and it killed her how sympathetic that sounded. "Don't worry about me. He wants you to take the room. Are you going to do that?"

There was a pause.

Part of her wanted to knock Trish out right there and flee, but if Kilgrave was controlling Trish then there was no telling who else might be under his thrall. It was always better to do what he wanted. Fewer people got hurt that way.

(How many times had she told herself that?)

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and straightened up. "Are you coming?"

"I think I'll grab a drink at the bar," said Trish. "I'll join you later, okay?"

She nodded, swallowing, and then the two of them went in, Trish disappearing into the bar while Jessica gave her name to the lady at the reception counter.

Same room. He'd chosen this.

Jessica took the room card without thanking the receptionist and turned away, feeling sick. Her palms were sweaty. Her heart raced. She looked down at her hands and they were shaking. Was this it? Was he here? If he'd come to get her, if he'd gone through Trish to do it, she… God, she didn't know what to do.

She felt the urge to bolt. Every muscle in her body screamed it at her. _Run! Get away. Don't let him get hold of you again._

She could run. Jessica looked back at the entrance, licking her lips. There were security guards hanging around but that was normal. For all she knew they had been compelled to stop her if she tried to run. For all she knew they hadn't.

But what would happen to Trish?

Something bad, she had no doubt of that. Even if she saved Trish, even if they got away this time, he'd find her, wouldn't he? She didn't have anywhere else to go and he knew where Trish lived. She'd barely started getting her life back together; she didn't have the resources to leave and start again somewhere else.

There was no way of telling if it was safe or not. Not until she tried it. Kilgrave wanted her to go up to the room.

God, she was trembling. It was like he had her all over again.

She took a deep breath and went to the elevator. Stepped out on the right floor. Walked down the corridor. She'd grown to hate hotels. They all looked the same, same bland decorations, beige walls, the doors stretching out on either side of her. They were a holding pen for strangers. Terrible things could happen here and no one would know or care.

She got to the room and opened it, stepped inside. Flicked on the lights. At first glance it was empty. She looked around to be sure, checked in the bathroom, stepped out to the balcony. The night breeze hit her and as she looked out over the Manhattan skyline a memory did too: of leaping from this balcony to the rooftop across the street, showing off her powers to Kilgrave. He'd been delighted; he'd told her she was amazing. And she'd been delighted too, flattered by his attention, breathless from the look in his eyes and the touch of his hands. They hadn't been able to keep their hands off each other.

A lump rose in her throat. She turned back inside and shut the balcony door behind her. She sat down on the bed, smoothing the covers beneath her hands, and then she noticed it. Tucked under the pillow there was a cell phone, a new one.

So this was how he wanted her to contact him.

She picked it up and checked the contacts list. There was only one number. He was making her do it again. Making her reach out to him.

She shoved the cell phone back under the pillow and turned away, fumbling for her own phone instead. Her call to Trish went straight to voicemail. Trish had probably been told to ignore any attempts to contact her. She was probably fine hanging out in the bar. Probably. As long as Jessica behaved.

She should have put better safeguards in place. Should have made sure that she knew where Trish was at all times.

"Goddammit," she muttered, and picked up the other cell phone.

The mystery number rang three times before she heard the click of an answer. But no voice.

Jessica frowned. "Hello?"

"Hello, Jessica."

It was him. Of course it was him. Her voice shook. "What did you do to Trish?"

"Trish? Nothing at all. Don't get upset, she only pointed you in the right direction. I want to talk to you."

"About what?"

"Well, about saving you for a start. I took care of your little problem at the police station. All the charges against you have been dropped. You can thank me later."

She swallowed. "You were there?"

"I've been here for a while. Now, I've prepared a gift for you. Go take a look in the wardrobe."

"A gift…" She didn't like the sound of that. But she did as he said, opening the antique mahogany wardrobe to find a full-length gown hanging there waiting for her. She ran a hand over the fabric. It was soft to the touch and deep purple in colour, almost black in the dark. She wanted to vomit. "You want to dress me up."

"I want you to dress yourself up. Everything you need is there. No rush. Take a shower, get ready, and come down to the restaurant in an hour."

Everything she needed… There was a shoe box, she saw, on the floor of the wardrobe, and jewellery and make-up. Even a razor – he had guessed correctly that she hadn't touched one since returning to New York.

So far, so familiar. She knew what to do.

"Fine," she said, swallowing her pride. "But if you hurt Trish, I will come for you. Do you get that?"

"Trish is perfectly safe. I'll see you at dinner."

And he hung up. Jessica stopped to gather herself, breathing hard. Shit. She'd expected this. Maybe not the specifics, but she'd expected him to return, and yet… Knowing that he had Trish under his thrall hit her hard. She was desperate, panicking. She could hardly contain it.

She'd do anything to protect Trish, she realised that now. This wasn't a promise, it wasn't an abstract thought. This was reality and she was already contemplating giving Kilgrave what he wanted. She'd dress up for him, go back to him, do anything he said if only he would leave Trish alone.

What would Trish want her to do?

That thought haunted her while she stood under the shower and scrubbed at hair and skin. Trish wouldn't give in. She'd save her friend and stop Kilgrave too, and she sure as hell wouldn't let Kilgrave threaten his way into rekindling their relationship.

But how?

Wrapping her hair in a bath towel, she dried off and put on the dress, rolling her eyes at the mirror. It was a perfect fit and so were the shoes. He had a taste for the gauche but he'd managed to restrain himself this time and go for something more elegant. She thought Trish would approve.

Not that Trish would approve of anything else about this situation.

She thought about forgoing make-up or leaving her hair a mess. Little things to piss him off. But what would be the point? Why put Trish at risk over something so trivial?

 _Give him what he wants, then get Trish._

That was her only plan. That was all she had, for now.

An hour later, Jessica descended the elevator feeling like the world's shittiest actress about to step out on stage. She saw the sign for the restaurant, hesitated, then went over to check in the bar instead.

Nope. Trish wasn't there. He wouldn't let her escape that easily.

She turned around, heart racing.

 _Give him what he wants, then get Trish. Protect Trish. Save Trish._

She walked into the restaurant, nodding at the welcome staff. Looked around. There. That familiar profile, his back turned to her. The French restaurant in London all over again, except this time she was the one coming to join him.

He was perusing the menu. Jessica slid into her seat, stony-faced, and Kilgrave looked up.

"Ah," he said. "Right on time. You look stunning."

He was smiling and she imagined knocking his teeth out one by one and feeding them to him.

She gritted her teeth. "You look shitty as usual."

"Hostile right off the bat," he said, looking disappointed. "You should be thanking me."

" _Thanking_ you?"

She knew why he'd met her at a public location, with several other guests enjoying their meals around them. It was to stop her from making a scene. She'd have her hands around his neck already if they were alone. Barely a minute into meeting him and she was seething.

"For getting you out of trouble, remember," he said. "Like I said, all the charges against you have been dropped."

She shook her head. "What are you doing here, Kilgrave? Where's Trish?"

"Trish is in her hotel room. You don't need to be angry on her behalf. I caught her at the police station and asked her to bring you here, that's all."

He sounded reasonable. But they'd had conversations like this before when he'd seemed matter-of-fact and concerned for her, and it had all been lies. She looked up as a waiter came over to serve their meals.

"I took the liberty of ordering on your behalf," said Kilgrave, seeing her face. "I know what you like."

He'd ordered pork ribs for her, which annoyingly she did really like. Jessica stayed silent while the waiter poured their wine, and then tucked into her food without thanking him.

"You didn't answer my question," she said. "Why are you here?"

"Isn't it obvious? I came back for you."

It was obvious. Other things were less obvious. "Why didn't you come back sooner?"

"I was waiting for the right moment."

"Swooping in after 'saving' me from the police?" She put that verb in air quotes. "That was your plan?"

"No," he said. "But I was keeping an eye on you because I knew IGH might come after you again, and here we are."

She laughed. It was the first thing that really got his back up; he stopped twirling spaghetti around his fork and stared at her, confused.

"What?"

"I was wondering when you'd bring that up. Big bad IGH."

He raised his eyebrows. "One of their men tried to kill you. I wouldn't expect you to be so flippant."

She snorted. "Bullshit. I know, Kilgrave. I know. I looked into IGH when I got here and I didn't find any conspiracy. I only found you."

He stared at her. "What?"

"IGH wasn't trying to kill me. The only reason you've heard of them is because you stole those files from my mom. You used IGH as a bogeyman to keep me in line. Admit it: you made the whole thing up."

He stalled. "Jessica…"

"Admit it! You set up the guys who kidnapped us. You lied about IGH wanting to kill me to scare me and keep me in England. You sent Carl after me and Trish. Admit it!"

There was a pause. Her fists were clenched; she unclenched them slowly, controlling her breathing. Kilgrave was glancing around at the other guests to make sure they hadn't attracted undue attention; she couldn't tell what he was thinking. He certainly didn't seem embarrassed to have been caught out.

He sighed. "Look. The problem with you, Jessica, is that you won't sit still if you don't have an enemy to punch. I know, I've been on the wrong end of your right hook multiple times."

Her voice wobbled. "So you admit it."

"You wanted to be a hero. I just gave you what you wanted."

She shook her head. "Don't. Don't pretend you did this for me. You know, I almost thought you were the good guy. When you saved me from the kidnappers… You did that to make yourself look good."

"Does it matter?" he asked. "I would have saved you either way. We promised to protect one another and I kept that promise. I'm keeping it still."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Did fiction and reality mean nothing to him? Couldn't he see the difference between rescuing her from a group of criminals and engineering a scenario so that he could play the white knight?

"People died!" The fucking bastard, she knew he didn't care but she screamed it at him anyway. "Innocent people! You didn't save me from the bad guys, you murdered innocent people in your sick game and you made me part of it. A man died in my apartment today. He came at me because you told him to and–"

"And you killed him." He finished the sentence for her. "That's on you, Jess, you could have knocked him out or overpowered him easily, but you lost control. It's what I've been warning you about all along."

She stood up. "I'll show you what happens when I lose control, you murderous trashbag."

"Everyone, ignore the angry lady," said Kilgrave loudly. "She's practising for a play." He looked up at her. "Jessica, sit down. These poor people are trying to enjoy their dinners, let's not cause a scene, eh?"

She had to take several deep breaths. Remind herself that she didn't know where Trish was regardless of what Kilgrave claimed, and that they were in a room of innocent people he could take control of at any point.

She sat down.

Kilgrave leaned forward, his tone earnest. "Look, I get it. I know why you had to come back to New York. You couldn't rest knowing that IGH was operating here. You got it into your head that they had to be stopped."

"I wonder why."

"That doesn't have to stop us from being together. That's why I'm here. I'm willing to start over."

She scoffed. He was… God, he was something. Thinking that he was here all forgiving and ready to take her back. The idea that she might have wanted to leave him had never occurred to him, so he'd concocted this dumbass narrative instead. Did he believe his own bullshit? She really couldn't tell.

"I crossed an ocean to get away from you," she said. "What makes you think I ever want to see you again?"

"This," he said, and drew a piece of paper from inside his suit jacket, sliding it across to her.

Jessica looked at it, licking her lips. It was the note she'd left for Kilgrave the morning she had fled to the airport. He'd kept it, a little crumpled, but very much intact.

"Read that line," said Kilgrave, pointing. "Go on, say it."

Shit. She read it. In hindsight, everything about that letter had been a fucking terrible idea.

Jessica looked at him. "I love you."

He smiled. "I love you too."

"Kilgrave… That's not…" She took a breath. "I wrote that to stop you from following me. You were supposed to stay with Alice and your daughter and forget about me."

"But that's not what I want."

"Where are they?" she asked. What he had he done with them before he got here? "Alice and Chloe, did you leave them behind?"

"No," he said. "I brought them with me. They're safe and sound, in a house I set up for them."

She exhaled. Fuck. More people to worry about. If it wasn't bad enough that he'd broken past their security measures and compelled Trish, he was keeping Alice and Chloe prisoner too. How was she supposed to save any of them?

"Kilgrave…" She shook her head. "Do you really want to make this work?"

"Yes," he said at once.

"Then you can't keep killing people." He opened his mouth and she raised a hand to stop him. "You can't keep putting us in situations where people die or get hurt. It isn't something that I can take. We have to do better. Both of us."

She wasn't sure if he understood, but his expression was serious at least. He'd said to her once that he wanted to be a good father. There had to be a part of him that was capable of doing that, even if he lacked empathy, even if he lacked all the basic fundamentals of being a decent human being.

Because no matter what happened next, today couldn't be undone. Today she had become and forever would be a killer.

There was nothing she could do.

* * *

They went up to the hotel room. He tried to take her hand and she shook him off with a disgusted look.

"Do you remember this room?" he asked. "We spent an entire day making love here."

She moved away from him, walking over to close the curtains leading to the balcony. "I remember."

"Jessica."

She had her back to him. The way he said her name, it wasn't a barked order. It wasn't impatient or demanding, but it was expectant. She turned, and there he was, like all the times he'd appeared in her dreams. He held out his hand.

She pursed her lips. "You're so certain I'll take you back."

"The course of true love never did run smooth," he quipped, "but it runs in the end."

"Hmm," she said. Murder and misquoting Shakespeare. What a fucking day she'd had. "This isn't the end. I've got a lot of shit to work through."

He took a step towards her, hand dropping back to his side. "Sounds hideous. Want me to help?"

"No."

She approached him anyway, and she felt his attention focus on her, gaze drinking her in. The silence was thick. They were inches away from each other when he reached out again, lifting a hand to her cheek which she swiftly caught and pushed away.

"I said no."

He took a breath and she stopped him with a hand on his chest. She ran her fingers over his tie, loosening the knot at his collar.

"You want me so badly, don't you?"

He said nothing, but she could see it in his eyes. He wanted her. He wanted her and he didn't have her and that was killing him, but it was also what he lived for.

When you could have everything for nothing, everything was worthless. That was his tragedy. That was why he'd spent his younger years taking and taking and taking, until he'd forgotten how to do anything else. Everything was worthless; nothing was precious.

Except one thing.

Her.

She had an idea. A way to protect Trish, Alice, Chloe. A way to save all of them.

"Tell me you want me," she whispered.

The only thing she had to give up was herself.


	17. there had to be a compromise

**xvii. there had to be a compromise**

"I want you." The way he said it made her shiver. "I missed you."

She undid the top button of his shirt. His breathing was soft, but she sensed his heartbeat quicken. Or maybe it was hers.

"You want me." She looked up at him. "You get everything you want when you want it."

She caressed his cheek, his stubble scraping along her skin, and he leaned into her touch, closing his eyes.

Then she wrapped a hand around his throat.

His eyes flew open. Desire turned to alarm as Jessica pushed forward and pinned him down on the bed. She had him in a chokehold and he was spluttering, gasping, as weak as a child.

"You think it's so easy for me to forgive you?" Her stupid dress was caught under her knees and she shifted before tightening her grip. "You think it's so easy for me to forgive myself? You destroyed my life. I haven't been able to get a single night's sleep since running from you. I can't sleep, I can't think, I can't see a goddamn future without you, I can't see anything."

He kicked and struggled under her. His eyes were bulging and she let him go, breathing hard.

He gasped, massaging his throat. "I didn't…"

"What?"

She snapped out the word, glaring at him. Her hands gripped his shirt, fighting the urge to strangle him again.

"I didn't say it would be easy," Kilgrave managed. "I know that."

"Where's Trish?"

"I already told you."

She pressed her weight into his chest. "She is off-limits, do you understand me? Control her again and we're done. I don't care how harmless you think it is. Not one command. Ever."

"Understood," he rasped. "I wasn't trying to hurt her."

"I don't care. Trish is a red line. You don't want to cross it."

"All right, I get it!" He took a breath with some difficulty, gazing up at her. "What do you want?"

A rare question. The rage had drained out of her; she let him go, slumping back on the edge of the bed while Kilgrave sat up and got his breath back.

"Ground rules," she said. "We're not together; you have to work at that. You can start by taking me to Trish."

She wasn't at all sure that he would listen to her. She didn't know whether she'd pushed him too far. But he got up, adjusting his collar, and indicated for her to follow him. They took the elevator down one floor in uncomfortable silence.

Kilgrave stopped by a door and cleared his throat. "She's in here."

Jessica knocked. The few seconds before Trish answered were agonising, but she did answer, smiling at the pair of them. It wasn't a smile that Jessica could trust.

"Meet me downstairs for breakfast," she told Kilgrave. "And stay away from Trish."

Then she stepped inside the room and shut the door in his face.

* * *

Twelve hours. That was her best guess at how long Kilgrave's control lasted. It was eight in the morning which meant the twelve hours had passed since he'd compelled Trish, and there was no noticeable difference in her friend's behaviour.

That was one of the worst things about his power. It was invisible. It was designed to make her paranoid.

"I'm so sorry," Trish was saying. "They wouldn't let my bodyguard into the police station and once he found me… I did everything he said." She looked shaken, huddled on the bed. "I never imagined what it would be like. It was so… complete… like he hijacked my brain."

"He did," said Jessica. "I've seen it a lot, it's what he does."

Trish looked up at her. "It was horrible. I didn't mean to lead you straight to him, I never would have–"

"I know," she interrupted. "You don't have to apologise. You didn't have a choice."

Trish took a deep, shaky breath, hugging her knees. "So what now?"

"Go home. I've got a plan to keep Kilgrave occupied. I'll make sure he stays away from you."

"You mean you're going to go back to him?"

She saw the alarm in Trish's eyes. Jessica pulled on a red leather jacket; she'd had to borrow Trish's clothes for the day.

"I said I'm keeping him occupied, not that I'm going back to him. As long as he thinks he has a shot with me…" She shrugged. "I can buy us some time."

"Time to do what?"

"I don't know!" She lifted out her hair which had gotten caught in the jacket collar. Trish and her tight clothes. "You're the one who said I can stop him. Come back when you have something."

She wasn't exactly a long-term planner. She'd never had the chance to sit down and plot Kilgrave's demise, never been in the right frame of mind for it. Relying on Trish was a risk. Relying on anyone was a risk.

Trish shook her head, looking down. "I don't know. I'm starting to think he's too dangerous to live."

Jessica stared at her.

"Oh – Jess, I'm sorry." Trish looked mortified, like she'd realised what she'd said a second after saying it. "I don't want to put that on you."

"What's one more murder, huh?"

She could taste the bitterness in her own voice. Whatever Trish was thinking, it was too late. All the damage had been done.

"That's not what I meant. He's not an innocent. You can't say he doesn't deserve it."

No. She couldn't. But Trish wasn't helping her case. If Kilgrave deserved to die, then so did she.

She twisted her mouth. "Text me when you get home."

She walked out with Trish staring after her. It was hard, leaving her behind. She'd never seen Trish so pale and shocked, never seen her turn in on herself like that. She'd asked Trish if Kilgrave had hurt her, if he had touched her, and the answer had been no. The guilt eating up her friend's face was a mirror to her own.

No time to dwell on it.

In the restaurant, she marched up to Kilgrave and spoke without preamble. "Take me to Alice and Chloe."

* * *

He protested, of course. He wanted to know why.

"I want to know that they're safe."

They were in a car, another random person being forced to play chauffeur. Jessica drummed her fingers on her knee, staring agitatedly out of the window. She was more nervous about this one. She didn't know where they were going, what kind of protocols he had in place. He could easily turn things around on her.

"Of course they're safe," said Kilgrave, offended. "I told you they were. Do you really think I'd hurt my own daughter?"

She turned and looked at him, kept her voice even. "What happened to Andrew?"

"You left him to bash his head against the wall, remember. I'm afraid he never recovered."

Her stomach clenched. Another death to add to the pile. She imagined the bodies stacking up in front of her, like a macabre points score. Not to mention what she had done to the survivors. Chloe had lost a father, Alice a husband. None of it would have happened if she hadn't put them on Kilgrave's radar.

They pulled up outside a modest house in the suburbs. She wouldn't have picked it out. Jessica looked at the street signs, memorising them, memorised the number of the house. Other details too: a red-painted door, a hydrangea bush, a child's swing in the back yard. There was no telling whether she'd be able to find them again if she came back here; Kilgrave had a habit of moving whenever he thought he'd been compromised. But she could try.

Kilgrave knocked at the door and she was surprised to see an armed guard open it. Jessica glanced sideways at him. "Prison guard?"

"Security," he answered. "I take personal security very seriously."

They stepped inside. She wondered if the original owners were here too, or if he'd procured the house somehow. It had been two months since she'd last seen him; he'd had time to prepare. The place was bright and airy, with something of a nautical theme as she walked into the lounge: there was a ship in a bottle standing on the mantelpiece and a sea-shell mosaic hanging on the wall.

A blue and white striped blanket was draped over the couch. And sitting there, hands clasped on her knees, face drawn… Alice. She stared up in fear as Kilgrave and Jessica entered the room, and Jessica's throat tightened.

Kilgrave clapped his hands. "Alice, give Jessica a warm welcome."

At once Alice smiled, standing up. "Welcome back, Jessica. Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?"

"Coffee," she said, reminded and disgusted all over again by his control. "Black, no sugar."

"One for me too," Kilgrave said as Alice shuffled past. "Make it how I like it, and behave."

There was something of a stern tone to his voice that suggested Alice had misbehaved in the past. Great. The woman had looked broken when they'd first walked in, she thought. What had Kilgrave done to her?

She turned on him. "Where's Chloe?"

He raised an eyebrow. "At school."

"You let her go to school?"

"Of course. She's incredibly bright; I'm not about to neglect her education."

She snorted. Kilgrave talking about valuing a child's education. The poor girl would have a lot to live up to.

"Look, see," he went on, showing her a couple of pictures on his phone. Chloe and Alice in this very room, looking cosy on the couch. Chloe outside a high school building, bag slung over her shoulder. Jessica squinted but she couldn't make out the name of the school before he put the phone away.

"Okay," she said, folding her arms while Kilgrave ambled over to the couch and picked up a magazine from the coffee table. "So you're controlling them both and you're having them watched by armed guards. That makes them your prisoners."

"Not at all. I haven't been here since the day before yesterday. That's time enough for my power to wear off."

"Hence the suit." The man who had let them in was standing by the entrance to the lounge and she glared back at him. Kilgrave probably paid for the extra security. He was smart enough to have a contingency in place for when his control wore off. "What happens if Alice tries to leave?"

"Hank accompanies her," said Kilgrave, waving at the man. "She can pop out to the shops and the like, and pick Chloe up from school. It's her responsibility to take care of the household."

"Domestic slavery." Her voice dripped with contempt. "What a life."

"It's no different to what she was doing in her old home. You told me not to separate them. A child needs her mother, you said. Chloe is safe here and she's well looked after. I'm doing what I promised."

God. His voice had the ring of certainty; he believed what he was saying. Jessica closed her eyes. In his twisted world, he was doing right by Chloe. The girl must be living in fear along with her mother and he probably neither noticed nor cared.

The sound of approaching footsteps alerted her and Jessica opened her eyes as Alice returned with their drinks on a tray. Kilgrave gestured for her to join him on the couch and she managed a tight smile at Alice, walking over to sit down.

"Did you have a long journey?" Alice asked, and Jessica stared at her until she realised that this was small talk. Kilgrave had ordered her to make Jessica feel welcome.

"This has to stop," she said.

Alice looked politely puzzled, stirring her tea. Kilgrave frowned at her. "What?"

She looked at him. "Let them go. This isn't fair. If you want to be with me, let them go."

He paused with his coffee mug halfway to his mouth, raising his eyebrows. "Ah. This is another of those red lines, is it? Setting boundaries and all that."

"It's a simple choice." She sounded more confident than she felt. "Me or them. If you want me, let go of them."

"No," he said.

It was like a knife between her ribs. She blinked. "What?"

"I said no."

"I didn't come here to negotiate."

"Nor did I."

She stood up, clenching her fists, and Kilgrave stood up too, facing her. Jessica swallowed, eyes darting over to a worried Alice. Stalemate, and if anyone was going to get hurt, it would be Alice. She wondered if the woman knew. She wondered how often she'd been hurt in the past two months.

"I'd be careful what you do next," Kilgrave continued. "You'd better watch that temper of yours. You set your boundaries around Trish; I respect that. She's your sister. But Chloe is my blood. You don't get to tell me what to do with my family."

"Then I get to walk away."

And she did, striding past Alice who wanted to know if she'd finished her coffee, but calling Kilgrave's bluff was always dangerous.

Kilgrave rolled his eyes. "Stop her, Hank."

A second later, there was a gun pointed at her face. Jessica stopped short, Hank blocking her way. Paid, compelled, whatever. It didn't matter. She was hardly going to escape from point-blank range.

Her voice trembled as she turned around, furious. "So you'll force me too?"

"No. But I will ask you to reconsider."

He was unrepentant. He was always fucking unrepentant. She didn't think he'd been sorry for anything in his life. What was it like to do what he did and yet live without guilt?

"For the record, this isn't how you get a girl to fall for you."

"I said I didn't want to come here. It's your poor choice for a date."

And still unrepentant. Unbelievable. She shook her head, but the look on his face told her that he wasn't going to back down and she knew that this time he had outmanoeuvred her. It wasn't just the gun pointing at her head, nor Alice's presence. If she pushed him now, if she broke it off and declared that they were over, then she'd break their truce regarding Trish as well.

She couldn't afford to do that. One battle at a time.

 _That's right_ , the Kilgrave voice in her head nagged at her. _Throw them under the bus again, it's what you do._

"You're right," she said finally, meeting his gaze. "This is a shitty place for a date. Let's get out of here."

To her relief, he agreed. She threw Alice one final look before they walked out, trying to put as much meaning in it as possible since she didn't dare say anything. _I'm sorry, Alice. I'll get you out._

But not quite yet.

* * *

She took him to an ice skating rink, which was hilarious because he was terrible at it and for once he couldn't use his powers to cheat. Small victories.

"I think I've got bruises on my bruises," he said, moving gingerly along the edge of the rink.

"Giving up already?" she taunted him.

"You brought me here to torture me, didn't you?"

"I thought it would be fun. Not my fault you have the physical coordination of a toddler."

He rolled his eyes and she half-expected him to take out his frustration on an innocent bystander, make them crash into the ice or something. Either they were incredibly fortunate that no one annoyed him enough to do that or he was actually restraining himself. She wasn't sure. Besides, Trish had texted her: _I have an idea._

That one message kept her going. They grabbed a milkshake together, chocolate for him and peanut butter for her. She put her phone away and messed around with her straw.

"I should take Chloe here," said Kilgrave, looking around. "I think she'd like it."

Maybe she would. This was a family place. It was quiet now but in the evening there would be stressed out moms running around, dads coaching their kids, teenage couples out on a first date. They'd perch on the plastic chairs and slurp their drinks, maybe go see a movie afterwards. She didn't intend to do that with Kilgrave, Jessica thought, but she might as well make use of the time she had to spend with him.

"About Chloe…" She looked up at him. "I wanted to ask you something. Chloe did something, the day that I left. When she grabbed you."

"Oh, yes," he said. "She's gifted, like me. I knew she would be."

"Like you?"

He saw her confusion and clarified: "It's a different ability. We tested it. It only works with skin-to-skin contact, but it can knock someone out almost instantly. Certainly left me feeling woozy."

Huh. Well, that tracked with what she had seen. It was very different from Kilgrave's mind control. She wasn't sure whether she should be surprised by that or not.

"And that was the first time she triggered it?"

"Seems so. Some combination of adrenaline and emotion, I suppose. Hormones. Some children develop their powers during puberty. A genetic trigger."

He was speculating, but she'd heard of that happening. Chloe hadn't been experimented on like the two of them; she'd inherited her abilities. Mutants, some people called them. She'd heard worse names.

"That means your power must be genetic," she said, thinking it through.

"I believe so, yes. Some kind of modification to my DNA. Yours must be too."

"I never really thought about it."

"I talked to an expert once, back when I was trying to track down my – track down the people who made me. His theory was that some people are born with the potential for abilities. It's in their DNA, it just needs to be unlocked. Experiments like the ones we were put through can unlock our abilities, but they drive the scientists mad because they can't be replicated. You never know what sort of ability you're going to unlock, if any, because it all depends on the individual genetic code."

"So you're saying it's a lottery." She pursed her lips. "I get super strength, you get mind control, Chloe gets to knock people out with a touch, and some guy down the street gets nothing because he doesn't have the right DNA."

"Exactly."

Like many of Kilgrave's claims, it sounded plausible. But she'd learned not to trust anything he said. Neither of them were scientists and honestly she didn't much care about the ins and outs of their powers. But the world was changing. More and more people were being recognised for their abilities. The fact that he now had hold of a second person with powers…

She looked down, thinking. "I wonder how many of us there are."

She knew about the famous ones, of course. The Hulk, that guy in the iron suit, Captain America… But what about here, in this diner, or on the ice rink? Would any of the kids here grow up to be gifted? Were there people being experimented on right now as they drank their milkshakes?

"More than the government would like us to think, I expect," he said. "That's why we should stick together. No one else can understand what we've been through."

"No… I guess not."

Her tone was glummer than his. He'd always insisted that their powers gave them privileges, that they were free to use them without regret. What was her power good for? Killing and maiming. Breaking and entering. She wasn't going to save Chloe or Alice by busting them out of that house; he'd never let that happen. She would have to think of something else.

Maybe Trish's idea would help. Jessica got up, made her excuses. Time to go.

"This was fun," he said. "We should do it again. Well, maybe not the ice skating. But this."

Meaning this bizarre day where they'd actually gone out on a date. And she'd enjoyed part of it, she thought. She hadn't been ice skating for years, not since she was a teenager, and it had been fun zipping around the rink. Better than moping in the apartment which was how she'd spent the majority of the past few weeks.

She might even acknowledge that she'd had fun with him. Obviously, that was ignoring all the rape and the murder.

 _No rape or murder today. What a swell guy!_

She tore off part of the check and scribbled on it before passing it to Kilgrave.

"Okay," she said. "You've got my number so here's how the dating game works. You call me, maybe I call you back. We see each other a couple of times a week while I decide whether I can stand you."

"I know how the dating game works. I do watch television." He tilted his head at her. "At what point do we have sex?"

"When we both want to. If we want to. And since you can't keep it in your pants that means I get to decide."

"This seems awfully one-sided."

"Yeah, well, better get used to it."

He tucked the slip of paper with her number on it into his jacket pocket. "All right. I look forward to seeing you again soon."

They stood up, that awkward moment of throwing on coats and jackets before preparing to part. Kilgrave leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. It was brief, a goodbye kiss. She almost recoiled.

Almost.

* * *

Trish's idea was to consult an expert. How did one put away a criminal with mind control powers? No jury would ever convict him. No police officer would arrest him.

That was how she found herself in the office of Jeri Hogarth, pacing around while Trish sat prim and cross-legged in front of Hogarth's desk.

"Sit down," said Hogarth. "You're giving me a headache."

"This is a bad idea," said Jessica. "He's watching me, I know it. If he finds out…"

"There's nothing to find out," said Trish. "All we're asking for is some advice. It's a completely hypothetical scenario."

"And what is this hypothetical scenario?" Hogarth asked. "My time doesn't come cheap. I wouldn't expect it to be spent on hypotheticals."

Jessica rolled her eyes. She didn't like this office, the wooden panels and glass, the single vase holding a single white lotus. They were high up over Manhattan; the entire place felt clean and cold. Hogarth had been in the police station at the same time as Kilgrave. Who was to say she hadn't encountered him already?

Trish looked at her, then sighed, clasping her hands in her lap. "You probably heard the news last week saying that I had a stalker…"

"Of course," said Hogarth. "I was going to represent Jessica, but no charges were pressed. I'd say that was down to my influence, but it wasn't. What happened?"

"What happened was that my mother put out a story about Carl being a deranged fan who tricked his way into my employment and then attacked me." Trish shook her head. She'd hated the way that story had played out. "Jessica saved me. But what if that's not what happened? What if the real stalker mind-controlled Carl to do what he did?"

Hogarth pursed her lips. "Mind control. Really."

"Yes, really."

Jessica paused, resting her arm on the back of Trish's seat. "I thought we were talking in hypotheticals."

"Oh, what does it matter?" Trish shook her head. "Look, I don't care if you believe us or not. What I'm asking is how you would build a case against someone who can control minds. How can we prove that he's responsible for his crimes?"

Hogarth leaned back in her chair, giving them a thin smile. She was assessing them, Jessica thought. Most likely she would write Trish off as a drug-addled bimbo. A former child star was bound to have some kooky ideas.

"Well," said Hogarth at length, "that would depend on how this mind control works. What evidence does he leave behind?"

Trish looked up at Jessica. She would have to answer this one. "He doesn't leave evidence. No fingerprints, no recordings, he doesn't even have his picture taken. He'll tell someone to commit a crime and then make them kill themselves so they can't report it. The survivors he leaves behind remember what happened, but they're scarred for life. They can't explain what they did."

"And what crimes does he commit?"

"Murder. Rape. Kidnapping. Keeping people enslaved against their will."

Hogarth raised an eyebrow. "That's a dangerous hypothetical individual."

"I agree," said Trish. "How do we stop him?"

"Well, your first challenge is proving that he has these powers at all. Any footage would be dismissed as staged. What you need is powerful, convincing testimony. Multiple testimonies, and a witness with authority."

"Like a police officer?" Trish asked.

"Yes. Go to the police; get them to open up an investigation. If they can set up surveillance and catch this mind controller in action, you'll have a case."

Trish looked at her again, her expression mirroring Jessica's. They'd already tried that. Trish had told the police about Kilgrave's mind control and then Kilgrave himself had turned up to shut down the investigation. Since then, they'd heard nothing.

"The police are going to need a testimony if they're to take us seriously," said Trish quietly.

"The police aren't equipped to deal with this," Jessica retorted. "We know that already."

"All right, I've heard enough," said Hogarth, standing up. "Come back to me when you have an actual case. I'll be happy to represent either of you."

Jessica was silent as they descended the building. Was it possible to capture evidence of Kilgrave's mind control in action? Could she use the time she spent with him to do that?

"I'm a witness," said Trish in the car. "Kilgrave controlled me directly; I can provide a testimony."

"To say what, he made you book a fancy hotel?" Jessica shook her head. "That's not illegal and you're not a credible witness."

Trish was affronted. "What? Come on."

"You're not, you're ex-rehab Patsy and you've been all over the papers because I killed your stalker. People will think you're paranoid and delusional."

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence."

"I'll deal with this, Trish." She looked away. "I know what to do."

"And are you going to tell me?"

"No." She exhaled. She'd thought about it and come to the only possible conclusion. "The more you know, the more information you have to give to Kilgrave if he controls you again. You have to trust me. Let me do this my own way."

There was a short pause. Trish's voice was small. "Are you ready?"

Ready to stand up to Kilgrave? Ready to do something, to save someone? The irony of it all. Obviously she wasn't the right person for the job, but she was the only one.

Trish was right. She was the only one who could stop him.

* * *

She'd given him her number. Of course he used it.

She had been on three dates with Kilgrave so far and found him a lot more bearable in small doses. The new thing was all the texting. He contacted her every night, usually because he wanted to see her again, but he also sent her pictures of what he called his dad-daughter adventures. Chloe waving from one of the bridges in Central Park, posing in front of a sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, eating ice cream at a cute Italian parlour, hugging a stuffed toy from the Disney store…

She was smiling or laughing in all of the pictures. In some of them she was with her mom, Alice looking equally thrilled. If she only had the photo gallery to judge by, she'd say they were having the time of their lives.

 _What are you up to tonight?_

She was wearing sweatpants, tucked in bed with a cup of chamomile tea and a book recommended by her therapist. A real go-getter.

 _I'm busy._

 _Doing…?_

 _Your mom._

She'd tried various tactics to put him off. Shown zero interest in the pictures, failed to respond to his flirting. It made no difference. The one thing she didn't quite dare to do was flat-out ignore him. She didn't want him to get suspicious.

 _There's a mental image I didn't need. Really though, where are you?_

 _Just at home._

 _On your own?_

She frowned at that. From anyone else it might have seemed innocuous or vaguely concerned. From Kilgrave it became ominous.

 _Yeah. Bedtime reading._

 _Something sexy?_

 _You wish. Self-help._

 _Any good advice?_

 _None that you'll listen to._

 _Good thing I'm not the one who needs to listen to it. All this navel gazing. We could be having a lot more fun._

 _Now isn't a good time for me._

 _Why not? I've been thinking about you._

She shivered at that. Again, from someone else she might have read it as romantic. From Kilgrave…

 _Sorry to hear that._

 _I want to see you. Tomorrow._

 _I'm busy. It'll have to be next week._

 _Oh?_

 _I'm going on a retreat. I know it sounds dumb. My therapist recommended it. It's a whole weekend out of town thing for alcoholics and other people who are fucked up like me._

 _Out of town where?_

 _Detroit._

 _That sounds a lot like running away._

She caught her breath. No matter how far away he was, no matter how strong her resolve, she still felt the anxiety settle like a weight on her chest when he questioned her.

 _I'm not running, I promise. I'll see you next week. Trust me._

 _I've heard that before._

 _It's true. What do you want me to say? I'll call you every night if it makes you feel better. We can stay in touch._

It took several tries before she finally convinced him. He wished her good night and she put the phone down by her bed, heart thumping. She'd packed an overnight bag. In the morning she told the same lie to Trish. She was going for a weekend of therapy. She'd do some soul searching, talk with a group, and take some time for herself. All the better to cope with dating the guy who had kidnapped her, right?

The sun beat down on her neck when she arrived at the bus station, squinting through her sunglasses. Most of her fellow passengers were tourists or families returning home. A red-faced dad in shorts and socks with sandals was telling off his kids in between wiping the sweat from his brow. It reminded her of her own father. The two teenagers arguing over their cell phones… Yeah, that was like her and her brother.

Jessica hung back, stepping on the bus last in line. The drive would take over fourteen hours. She'd have plenty of time to dwell on the past, both distant and recent. In particular, she'd have time to think about what to say to the old friend whose life in London she had ruined. The reason she was going to Detroit.

She was going to see Fiona.


	18. crazy bitch blackout

**xviii. crazy bitch blackout**

It was simple. She needed to present evidence of Kilgrave's mind control to the police. A testimony of an actual crime that had taken place, something that they would take seriously. Something that she could corroborate.

Carl was dead. The two men who had kidnapped her were dead. Andrew was dead. Most of her other potential witnesses were in England, out of reach. She'd encountered one other ex-girlfriend of Kilgrave's in that restaurant at Thanksgiving, but she didn't know the girl's name or whether she still worked there. Alice and Chloe were under guard; Kilgrave would know if they went missing. Saving them was her end goal.

Which left Fiona. She needed a witness who wasn't on Kilgrave's radar and Fiona seemed like the perfect fit. She'd done her research. She knew Fiona's address and she knew how to get there. The one thing she worried about was Kilgrave finding out. Was he suspicious? Would he have her followed?

If he did, it would have to be one of the other passengers on the bus. She cast a suspicious eye over all of them when they arrived, hanging back in the bus station while the rest of the passengers moved on. Only once they had all gone did she pick up her bag and trudge over to the motel she'd booked for the night.

She threw off her clothes, washed, changed and collapsed on the bed in utter exhaustion. But she couldn't sleep, not yet. She had to call Kilgrave.

"Hey, sweetheart," he crooned through the phone. "I take it you arrived safely?"

She rolled her eyes. "Safe and sound, Dad."

He chuckled. "How's lodgings?"

There was either a crack in the corner of the ceiling or a particularly long-legged spider. "Fine," she said. "I got my own room."

"Are you prepared for tomorrow?"

"I don't know."

It was an honest answer. She felt vulnerable saying it. Was she prepared to face Fiona? Prepared to hear what had happened to her in Fiona's own words? Alice's story had been harrowing enough and that had been years ago and Kilgrave's fault. This was recent. This was her.

"You can do it, Jessica. I believe in you. Whatever you need to talk through, whatever demons of the mind you need to slay, go get them."

"Demons of the mind, huh?"

"That's a technical term." She could hear the smile in his voice. "I don't know what the professionals will say, but I want to support you with this. I want you to get better."

"Yeah. Me too."

"Let me know how it goes, won't you?"

"I will."

They said good night. She ended the call and took a deep breath, staring up at the crack-or-spider on the ceiling. She felt better and worse. Was that possible? He'd comforted her. She was the fly caught in his web and it was horrible because she couldn't escape but once the fly had been sedated and wrapped in silk, well, it was safe and warm, wasn't it? Silk was a luxury compared to the dung heap.

Her thoughts were spiralling.

He wanted her to get better. Better for him. She curled up on her side and tried not to think about what that looked like.

* * *

In the morning she headed to Fiona's apartment.

It was a dirt-coloured tower block with a fountain outside to add some character. She climbed the stairs rather than taking the elevator, and by the time she reached the right floor she felt less light-headed and more like she was dragging a whole pile of rocks behind her. Her feet were heavy. Every step an effort.

But she made it. She stood at the door and told herself that she could do this. _You can do it, Jessica. I believe in you._

No.

She shook her head. His voice was insidious. _I can do this. I can._

She knocked. Several agonising seconds passed. Then the door opened and Fiona's face peered out at her.

"Jessica?"

She looked the same. It was disconcerting. Fiona was as well put together as she had been on that day in London, her hair perfectly curled, her nails polished. Meanwhile Jessica was wearing a baggy sweater and hadn't bothered to brush her hair.

She took a breath. "We need to talk."

Fiona's eyes widened. "Talk… Jess, I haven't seen you in ages. Are you okay? What are you doing here?"

"I'll explain, I just… Can I come in?"

It took some time to persuade her. Perhaps Fiona sensed that she was nervous or shifty. At any rate, the atmosphere was awkward as Fiona invited her in.

"I really have to go soon," she said. "I'm visiting my mom."

Fiona's apartment, predictably, was also well put together. Not a single thing out of place. She felt like she was dirtying the place up just by sitting here. Fiona joined her on the couch opposite, clasping her hands in her lap.

"So what brings you to Detroit?"

Jessica got out her cell phone. "I need your help to put Kilgrave in jail."

"What?"

"I've come to hear your story," said Jessica. "I need you to tell me in your own words what happened the last time we saw each other and I need your permission to record it and send your testimony to the police."

There. She'd said it. Fiona looked utterly nonplussed. "Oh my God. You can't be serious. The police?"

"And I need you to keep this a secret," she added. "If Kilgrave finds out what we're doing here, we're both screwed."

"Wow," said Fiona. "Wow. I mean, you have some nerve. You can't come barging into my home and making demands. What is going on with you two?"

The fuck? "Don't you remember what happened to you?"

Fiona's face closed off. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"He'll do it to others. If you don't say anything he'll get away with it."

"Get away with what? If you're talking about what happened with us, don't. I made a stupid mistake and I don't want to talk about it. I've moved on. You should too."

"A mistake?"

She had a horrible feeling about this. It wasn't dissimilar to the feeling she'd had when Chloe had arrived home that first time. A sinking stone.

"I was drunk. It happens."

She stared. "No, you weren't."

"I was totally out of it," said Fiona firmly. "Obviously I regret it, but I don't need you coming here to remind me of my screw-ups."

"You weren't drunk! You were being mind-controlled."

There was a long pause.

"Jess, what is up with you?" Fiona looked genuinely concerned, leaning forward to look at her. "Are you on drugs? Just tell me if you are because I can get help."

"I'm not on drugs!" Jesus fuck, Fiona was dense. She'd had enough. Jessica stood up and picked up the armchair she'd been sitting in with one hand, lifting it up above her head. "You think mind control doesn't exist? You think it's impossible? Does this look possible to you?"

As parlour tricks went, this one took no effort but it made her point effectively. The armchair was heavy. A woman of her stature couldn't have lifted it. She'd have to be an Olympic bench-presser to make it look this easy.

Fiona squeaked. "Okay, you're scaring me. Please put that down."

She let the chair drop. Fiona flinched when it hit the floor and Jessica forced herself to speak softly. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. Kilgrave made you do it."

"With mind control? You really think that?"

"It's what he does."

Fiona still looked doubtful, but at least she was listening. She glanced down at her knees, her hands clasped tightly together, before taking a breath and meeting Jessica's eyes. "Is this… Is this because you regretted it too? You're saying your boyfriend controlled us, I mean…"

"No." It would be easy to let Fiona think she was a victim too. But she couldn't lie. "No, he controlled you, not me, I'm immune to his power."

"Oh, so I'm the only schmuck in this situation." Fiona's eyes glittered. She stood up. "I'm going to see my mom. I hope you get help, Jess, I really do, but I can't help you. You need to go."

"Do you think I got on a bus for fourteen fucking hours to walk away with nothing?"

"Jess…"

"No! You know that you did everything he said. Deep down, you know it. Say it!"

"You're crazy."

The look Fiona gave her was one of utter disbelief. She'd made up her mind. She had her story and it was the wrong story.

 _You're crazy._

Maybe she could've handled it better. Maybe she could have shown some empathy, taken the time to listen, waited until Fiona felt comfortable enough to admit that she hadn't gotten intoxicated and cheated on her fiancé, that something far worse had happened. Trish would have done that. Trish was so much better than her at everything and especially this.

Something about being called crazy made it harder to act in a calm and rational manner.

She stood up. "I came here to get your testimony and I'm not leaving without it. Please don't make me do this the hard way."

* * *

She did it the hard way.

Trepidation had weighed her down on the way up. Regret hit her on the way down. It was instant, a sickening gut-punch. She had the video that she wanted, but not permission to use it. The last she had seen of Fiona, she was crying, face blotchy with mascara, and huddled on the floor.

How else was she supposed to get the evidence? Fourteen hours it had taken to get here. Fourteen fucking hours and she had left Fiona crying on the floor.

It was an image she needed to bleach from her system. Jessica walked until her feet took her to a liquor store, bought as much vodka and whiskey as she could carry, and somehow found her way back to the motel.

When the world came back into focus it was fifteen minutes to midnight and her cell phone was buzzing. Kilgrave. She hadn't called him.

Jessica rolled over on her back with a groan, dropping the empty whiskey bottle by the side of the bed. "Yeah?"

"You didn't call. Late night?"

It was hard enough navigating conversations with Kilgrave when she was sober. She cleared her throat, hoping she didn't sound as rough as she felt. "Long day. Sorry I forgot to call."

"How was it?"

"Sitting around hearing sob stories from a bunch of strangers? Exhausting."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound fun. I thought this was supposed to help you."

"Me too." She fidgeted, annoyed at how hot and sweaty she was. "Guess I can't be helped."

"Not with that attitude. Are you okay? You don't sound good."

"No, I just…" She closed her eyes. The world seemed shaky, unstable, like the bed might collapse and fall through the floor at any moment. "I miss you. I'd rather be with you right now than stuck here and I did not expect to think that."

His voice softened. "Well, the feeling's mutual. New York is dull without you."

"What, no weekend plans?"

The distraction worked. He told her about what he'd been up to with Alice and Chloe and she faded in and out, offering the occasional 'mmm' or 'yeah' to reassure him that she was still listening. Something about going to the zoo, nothing more interesting or less horrific than she'd heard already.

After the call, she blinked several times to clear her vision and watched the video that she'd taken of Fiona again. It wasn't any less awful the second time.

 _You're crazy._

She was drunk. She wasn't being mind-controlled. Any stupid decisions were her own. She'd made so many already, what was one more?

* * *

She walked into the police station and demanded to see Clemons. This was after another fourteen-hour bus ride, after a day of, well, day-drinking and little else. The one good thing was that Kilgrave wasn't expecting her to be back yet. She'd talked to him and pretended that everything had gone okay and she'd see him tomorrow. So in theory she could do this without worrying about being followed.

Her hair was an unwashed mess and she stank of sweat and booze. The first police officer she interacted with took one look at her and immediately assumed that she was homeless.

"Fuck you," said Jessica wearily.

They made her wait on one of those shitty plastic chairs in a room that looked like a hospital waiting area from fifteen years ago. Eventually an officer called her in and she was shown into a small office where Clemons was waiting for her with the air of a disappointed headmaster.

"Ms Jones," he said. "I didn't expect to see you back so soon." He checked his watch. "Well, it's almost midnight and I was called back into the office because I'm told you refused to see anyone else. What's going on?"

"I have something to show you." She brought up the video on her phone and handed it to Clemons. "Watch this."

He did so with a frown and Jessica slumped back, folding her arms while she waited for him to get through the full recording. She'd chosen Clemons not because she particularly rated him – they'd had one interview and then Kilgrave had intervened anyway – but because he was the one officer she knew for sure had heard about Kilgrave's mind control powers thanks to Trish. She wasn't risking anyone who hadn't been involved already.

Clemons was silent for a good ten seconds after viewing the recording. Finally, he pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose and looked up at Jessica. "Would you like to explain what I just saw?"

"Her name is Fiona Beckett. She lives in Detroit. I recorded that video yesterday and I'm showing it to you as evidence that there's a very dangerous man out there and he needs to be put away."

"Evidence of mind control. Ms Jones, the last time we talked, you refused to discuss the possibility that mind control might have had anything to do with–"

"Yeah," she interrupted him, "because it sounds like bullshit. I killed a man and I should have taken the fall for it, but the case was dropped. Do you know why?"

He gave her a look. "That's not something I'm at liberty to discuss."

"It's because Kilgrave waltzed into this station and told you or one of your superiors to drop it. Did you see him? Tall, late thirties, British accent, stupid clothes. He walked right in here and you couldn't do a thing."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because he told me." She was losing her patience. "I've just given you two crimes that were committed by a mind controlling asshole. Do something about it."

There was a moment's pause. Clemons glanced down at her phone and then sighed, deep and weary. "This is above my pay grade. Go home, Ms Jones. We'll continue this conversation when you're sober and when I've had a good night's sleep."

He took a copy of the video from her phone, gave her his contact details and told her to come back to the station tomorrow afternoon. That worried her – she had a date with Kilgrave tomorrow night – but he wouldn't budge.

Finally, she stood up and swayed on her feet.

Clemons frowned at her. "Are you all right, Ms Jones? If you need assistance…"

"I'm good," she said.

Unfortunately, she said that right before she vomited all over his desk.

* * *

The mattress felt wrong under her back, too flat and hard. Jessica stirred, swallowing with some difficulty, head pounding. The ceiling was strange. The bed was narrow and small. She sat up, blinked, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light she realised where she was.

A prison cell.

She put a hand to her head, wincing. Right, she'd gone to the police station… It had been late, quiet… She'd demanded to see Clemons… And then she'd thrown up all over him. After that, she couldn't remember.

She had no idea what time it was, couldn't tell if it was daylight. Panic struck her; she fumbled around for her cell phone. Gone. They'd taken it away from her.

They… The police?

If Kilgrave came looking for her…

She got up and banged at the door. "Hey! Hey, get me out!"

A hatch in the door opened and an unfamiliar pair of eyes peered in. Another police officer. "Jessica Jones?"

"Yeah. What is this bullshit, why did you lock me up?"

"You passed out," said the officer. "We decided to keep you here overnight for your own safety. Are you feeling all right, ma'am?"

She had the hangover from hell. "I've been better," she deadpanned.

So they hadn't arrested her. The officer let her out without any objections and told her that she could pick up her things at reception. He was friendly, friendly enough that the back of her neck prickled, her anxiety coming to the fore. Anyone could be Kilgrave's stooge. He could be lurking anywhere. She never forgot that.

But she picked up her things with nothing more than a judgemental look from the cop at the whiskey bottles in her bag. One problem. Her phone was missing.

"Ms Jones." Clemons appeared before she started yelling about it. "Come through to my office. Would you like a coffee? Get the lady a coffee."

She didn't know what to make of this. Jessica followed him back into the office, gulping down the coffee that was provided for her as well as devouring a cereal bar. Someone had noticed that she hadn't eaten. Clemons had her phone on his desk. Well, that explained that.

"You want the full story now?" she asked.

Clemons leaned forward, folding his arms. "Go on."

Obviously, she didn't tell him everything. She told him that Kilgrave was stalking her, not Trish, despite the tabloid stories. He'd sent Carl after her as petty revenge. Fiona was one of his exes, a one night stand.

"And how do you know Ms Beckett?" Clemons asked.

She swallowed. "I was there that night. I helped him do what he did."

Clemons frowned. "You're saying you participated in an assault?"

"Yes."

She didn't see any point in denying it. If whatever put Kilgrave away put her away too, well, she deserved it.

Clemons sighed, shaking his head. Something in his body language shifted, his tone becoming more serious. "Well, I can tell you that we've looked into this since last night. I contacted the local police department in Detroit. They spoke to Ms Beckett and she told us that you threatened and coerced her into making this video. Is that true?"

Oh. Shit.

In the cold light of day, with caffeine in her veins instead of liquor, she knew that this was the inevitable outcome. Fiona's testimony meant nothing. She had wasted her time.

Jessica swallowed. "It's true that she didn't want to make that video, but everything she said is the truth."

"Not according to her. You went all the way to Detroit to terrorize a young woman into making a false accusation. Why?"

"Because it was true! He forced her–"

"Ms Jones, is it true that you are currently in therapy?"

She stared at him. "What?"

"It's a question, that's all. I'd like you to answer it."

"Yes, I'm in therapy. I'm in therapy to try and get over all the crazy shit he put me through!"

"This man you're accusing, Kilgrave… Are the two of you currently in a relationship?"

"No."

Clemons held up her phone. "You seem to have exchanged a lot of messages for someone you're not in a relationship with."

Jessica shook her head, desperate. "We're… It's complicated."

"It would appear so. How would you characterize your relationship?"

"Fucked up."

"Look, Ms Jones, if we have a domestic situation here that we can help with, I'd be happy to. There are services we can recommend, and we can bring in your boyfriend for questioning–"

"No," she said at once. "No, haven't you been listening? He can control minds! You can't question him."

Clemons sighed heavily. "What do you want from us, Ms Jones?"

"I want you to investigate him from afar without being an idiot and getting caught. Put a wire on me or something, whatever you want."

"So we can watch him controlling you?"

"Not me," she said. "He can't control me. But anyone else, yes."

"Not you." Clemons raised his eyebrows. "That's convenient."

She didn't know what it was about this part of the story that people found so hard to believe. It was like they suspended disbelief up to a point, allowed themselves to accept that a mind controller might exist, learned about the rules of how he operated… and then the moment they heard that she broke those rules, their suspension of disbelief snapped. It was a step too far to think that she might be an exception. No, she was obviously crazy. Far more likely that she'd made the whole thing up.

God, she was so close to losing her temper. "Convenient, yeah," she said, "so you can use me to get to him. What do you want from me? What will it take for you to believe me?"

If no one believed her, what was the point? Why even try?

She couldn't do this on her own. Not when everyone was on Kilgrave's side. When the whole world belonged to him, what could one person do?

Clemons asked more questions, but she stopped listening. Her chest was a hollow pit. The fluorescent lights made her eyes itch. He said something about escalating the matter and getting back to her if anything came up, but it was a tin-eared promise.

She was shown out of the office and into the flickering, blurred edges of the streets of Manhattan. Smoke and traffic jams.

She reached for her whiskey.

* * *

The subway ride was a blur, a world out of focus. She was stuck in her head.

Everyone thought she was crazy.

Maybe she was. Maybe she had it all wrong. How would she know? Maybe the people that Kilgrave controlled thought that everything was fine and never realised that they weren't acting of their own free will. Trish was an exception because she knew about Kilgrave's power and he'd made her do something that she would never do. Fiona was fine. They hadn't hurt her; she'd said it herself. Alice and Chloe were having a wonderful time; the pictures proved it. Why act like she had some responsibility to save them?

Why did she feel so rotten?

She hated this feeling. It was pervasive, like a bad smell that wouldn't go away. She arrived back in Trish's empty apartment, emptied her bag of all the bottles she had remaining and tried to get rid of that smell, to drink until she'd washed away the bad taste in her mouth.

She turned on the radio then sprawled on the couch to listen to Trish's show. Some godawful interview with a chef promoting his latest book.

"It's no wonder that people have so many health issues these days with our heavy reliance on processed food, too much sugar, cheap meat. What you put into the body is what you get out of it. That's why I say that ingredients are everything. Go organic, cook your own meals, starting with these recipes."

"That's all well and good if you have the time, but what if you're on a budget, time-poor and you've got a family to feed? How do you make the lifestyle you recommend accessible to the average American?"

"There are ways to save money. Don't buy that overpriced latte every day. Cut down on sugary snacks. Drink less. I meet so many people who won't admit how much they spend on wine, beer, spirits, and they could be using that money to–"

Preachy asshole. She hit the radio in irritation to turn it off and instead smacked it halfway across the room where it smashed into a table leg and went silent.

That would teach him and his _what you put into the body_ bullshit. She poured another shot.

* * *

It occurred to her that she had a date with Kilgrave tonight. She'd better go.

 _Wanna see you where are you_

The reply took a little longer than expected and she squinted at the screen until she saw double.

 _Back early? Let me pick you up._

She showered and dressed, or maybe dressed and showered, she wasn't sure. Then she switched on Trish's expensive hairdryer to give her hair volume and pizazz or at least dry it out, poked herself in the eye with her mascara, and applied red lipstick with admirable accuracy.

Date with Kilgrave. Nailed it.

There was a bounce in her step as she exited the apartment, because at last she was getting out of this fucking apartment. Kilgrave was waiting for her by a sleek black car that wasn't his, look at him, Mr Handsome Prick in a Purple Suit. Fucker. She wanted to jump his bones.

Kilgrave frowned at her. "You're drunk."

"No shit. Where are we going?"

She almost lost her footing when she reached the car, throwing out an arm to right herself. That might have dented the door.

"Okay," said Kilgrave, taking her arm. "We're not going anywhere. What the bloody hell have you been doing? Get inside, come on."

"But I wanna go out," she protested, making no effort to stop him. She was starting to realise that she was actually quite dizzy.

"Oh, Jessica," he said when he saw the apartment.

She stopped and stared as if for the first time. Oh, yeah. Empty bottles strewn on the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the couch. Empty packets of whatever junk food she had in that day. Her clothes from yesterday were on the floor.

Trish was going to kill her.

"See, this is why I don't invite you back," she said. "I don't clean."

"So I see. What brought this on?"

She shrugged. "What? This is normal. Do you want a drink?"

"No," he said firmly, looking around. "You need water and rest. Go to bed."

If she'd thought about it in a sober frame of mind, she would have found it surprising. Kilgrave taking care of her. He insisted that she drink some fluids, use the bathroom and go to bed. He swept back her hair while she splashed water on her face and helped her undress. He was tucking her into bed when she reached out to touch his cheek.

"We had a good time, right, you and me?" She was slurring her words. "We had a spectac… a spectac… a bloody good time." She tried imitating his accent. He didn't look impressed. "I was thinking that life was so much easier when you were telling me that everything is fine. Because everyone thinks so. Everyone thinks everything is fine, who cares about a little murder. I don't. Who cares?"

"You're babbling," he said, hushing her. "Everything will be fine, you just need to rest and recover, all right?"

"Fuck me," she said suddenly, grabbing his hand. He'd been about to get up but she'd stopped him; he was right here, sitting on her bed, and she wanted him. She felt a burning desire for him.

He shook his head. "Not like this."

"I want you inside me."

"Not like this." He gently disentangled his hand from hers and she stared up at him, stung. "We'll have to cancel our date tonight. Think about that when you wake up."

Well, she'd done it. She'd become so disgusting that even Kilgrave didn't want her. Jessica blinked tears out of her eyes, her hand slipping away. His lips brushed her forehead before he departed in silence.

At some point or other she fell asleep.


	19. sorry about your birthday

**xix. sorry about your birthday**

It was a reluctant awakening. She'd had that before, buried herself under the sheets, closed her eyes and ignored her splitting headache.

But this time she wasn't alone. She felt someone sit down on the bed, opened her eyes to see a glass of water being set down beside her.

"Jess, are you okay?"

"Trish…" Trish was here. She hadn't been here last night, someone else had been… _Him._ Jessica sat up, panic firing up her muscles. "Is he here? Is Kilgrave here?"

Trish seemed fine. Concerned, yes, worry lines between her eyes, but she reached out to take Jessica's hand, soft and unhurried.

"No, he left last night."

"Did you see him?"

She nodded. "I saw him. My bodyguard came in with me and almost shot him. He took off right after that."

"Where's your bodyguard now?"

"He's…" Trish frowned. "Wait."

Trish got up and left and Jessica shook her head, grabbing the glass of water to gulp down as fast as possible. Her head hurt. She fumbled for her phone, checking the time. Eight am. She'd slept all night. If Kilgrave had left the night before, his spell should have worn off. If he hadn't… Trish might still be under his control.

She rolled out of bed, pulled on her jeans, and hurried into the living area where Trish was staring at her phone looking bewildered.

"He's not here. I should have a guard posted outside the apartment twenty-four seven and he isn't here."

"Kilgrave." Jessica went over to the fridge and was disconcerted to find no alcohol in there. "He took apart your security. It's my fault; I let him in last night."

Her memories were hazy. She had been drunk, she'd let him into the apartment… Jessica frowned, looking back at Trish. Hadn't she trashed the place? It looked pristine. She'd let him in and he'd taken her to bed and then…

Oh, God. Heat rose in her cheeks. He'd rejected her. She'd been so fucking pathetic and needy and he'd rejected her.

Trish came over while she searched the cupboards, desperate to purge the memory.

"If you're looking for something to drink, you won't find it." Trish folded her arms. "I threw out all the booze."

Jessica turned and stared at her. "You threw it out? All of it?"

"Maybe you don't remember, but you were seriously out of it last night. Do you know how long I spent cleaning up your mess?"

"Did Kilgrave tell you to do that?"

It would be just like him to fuck her over. He'd never liked her drinking habits, always judged her for it. Of course he'd take the nuclear option.

But Trish shook her head. "We both know it isn't the first time I've cleaned up after you. What happened? I thought you were in therapy, not going on a binge."

"I was…" She stopped, bit her lip. "I was supposed to go on a date with Kilgrave. I started drinking to take the edge off and I didn't stop. Sorry I messed up your apartment."

She hated to lie, but she had to. She couldn't risk Kilgrave finding out the truth. To her relief, Trish didn't question the story. She made them coffee and they sat down together, Jessica warming her hands around her coffee cup. The caffeine helped. She felt a little more awake, a little less jittery. She could start to think.

"You need to stay here until I'm sure that you're not being controlled. If you saw him last night, I can't trust anything you say."

"Jess…"

"Sorry. You know I can't."

Trish sighed. "How long until we can be sure?"

"Twelve hours, give or take. I'll watch you, make sure that Kilgrave doesn't get anywhere near you."

Trish hesitated, glancing down at her coffee before looking up again. "That might be difficult."

"Call in sick if you have to, your safety is more important than your goddamn talk show."

She was getting irritated, the caffeine buzz getting to her head. Something about Trish wasn't right, she was sure of it. When she got her hands on Kilgrave…

"It's not my job that's the problem," said Trish. "I took the day off, I have the show pre-recorded… Did you forget? It's my birthday today."

…Oh.

Jessica blinked, a lump forming in her throat. Shit. Not only had she forgotten, she'd drunk herself into a stupor and put Trish in harm's way the night before her birthday, and then forced Trish to clean up her mess in the morning.

She put her head in her hands. "God, I… I forgot. I'm sorry. This is so shitty, I…"

"It's okay," said Trish, although she did look disappointed. "The bad news is… Well, you know I was planning for the two of us to celebrate tonight. Not this time. Kilgrave's coming over."

Her head shot back up. "What?"

"He asked me why I was back so late last night and I told him that I'd gone out for birthday drinks with some friends from work. So now he's coming over for dinner. He said it would make up for the date that he missed. I'm sorry."

Jesus Christ. She was going to kill him.

Jessica stood up. "Right. That is not happening. You stay there while I call that asshole."

Rage fuelled her: she stormed back into her bedroom. She was angry at everything. Angry at him for being an asshole. Angry at herself for the same reason. Angry at the lack of fucking alcohol, fuck him for taking that away from her.

The phone rang six times before he answered, Jessica pacing around her room in agitation.

"Well, look who's returned to the world of the living."

She gritted her teeth. "I told you not to mess with Trish. I told you Trish was a red fucking line."

"Whoa, whoa, come on. If you're going to make wild accusations, have the decency to do it to my face."

"I told you to stay away from her."

"And whose fault was it that I was in your apartment last night? That's right: yours. Did Trish tell you what happened? There was a man with a gun. I don't like men with guns unless they're working for me. You can't blame me for defending myself."

Smug bastard. He always had an excuse.

"Inviting yourself over tonight is not defending yourself, asshole. Stay the fuck away from me."

She hung up, breathing hard, and gripped the phone case so tightly she almost cracked it. She felt like she'd run a marathon. God, and then there was Trish, and whatever had happened to the security guard, and…

Her phone buzzed. Hands trembling, she opened the message.

 _You ruined our date last night Jessica. I'm coming tonight whether you like it or not. Wear something nice._

Fuck.

* * *

The problem was, she didn't know what to do. That was why she'd had the weekend from hell. Going to the police had been a disaster. They were never going to listen to her. Her plan had failed. Their security measures had failed. Her efforts to keep Kilgrave away from Trish had failed.

What was she supposed to do?

"Talk to me," said Trish after she'd paced around the apartment for what felt like the hundredth time. "Tell me what's going on, I want to help."

"You can't help." She threw Trish a look. "Goddammit, you can't help. I'm on my own."

"Look, why don't we go out tonight?" Trish suggested. "We can leave before Kilgrave gets here. Just refuse to see him."

She shook her head, stopping at the window where she looked out onto the street below. "Have you seen this? There's a black van down there that's been around all day. He's having me watched. If we leave, he'll know it."

Trish joined her at the window, frowning as she looked down. Jessica had noticed the van earlier that morning while she was conducting a sweep of the apartment. It just sat there, ominously, blacked out windows, no one visible but perfectly placed to watch the apartment. All their security was gone and at this point she didn't trust anyone but herself to protect Trish. She felt horribly vulnerable.

Trish's phone buzzed and she let out a frustrated exclamation after reading the message.

"What?" Jessica asked, alarm bells already ringing.

"Oh, God," Trish groaned. "As if today couldn't get any worse." She looked up at Jessica. "It's my mother."

* * *

So here it was, the birthday party from hell.

She couldn't have picked two guests worse than the ones they were about to have. Kilgrave and Dorothy. In the same room. With Trish.

"What are you gonna do?" Trish asked. "Are you going to break up with him?"

"I can't," she realised.

She couldn't, because if she did he would hurt Trish. He'd invited himself over, knowing that she'd be pissed at him for controlling Trish, knowing that he had broken the one rule she had set for him. And there was nothing she could do.

 _Get through it_ , she told herself. This was like the hotel. She would have to play along, keep him happy, avoid raising suspicion… do all that until the night was over and she could think of another plan. She borrowed her outfit from Trish, a classic black dress that she knew he would appreciate, applied her make-up, and did her hair.

Her insides were a pit of dread.

Dorothy arrived first. Trish opened the door for her, putting on a strained smile as her mother came in with a giant bunch of flowers and a bottle of champagne.

"Happy birthday, darling! You look wonderful – thirty already, I can't believe how quickly the time goes…"

Trish reluctantly accepted a hug. "Thank you, Mother."

"Hey, Mom," said Jessica breezily. "Let me take that."

Meaning the champagne. She'd been aching for a drink all day. Trish gave her a worried glance, but didn't try to stop her as Jessica whisked away the bottle, Dorothy following her to place the flowers into a vase in the kitchen.

"Well, Jessie," said Dorothy, looking her up and down with a critical eye, "there's a transformation. It's good to see you making an effort for once."

"Well, it's a special occasion," said Trish, saving her from having to respond. "Why don't you sit down, Mother? Dinner's almost ready."

Another reason that this was a terrible birthday: Trish was cooking dinner. Jessica had tried to help, but she was so antsy it was impossible to concentrate. She poured some of the champagne into a whiskey glass and knocked it back before Trish took the bottle away from her.

"Hey, not before dinner. This is going to be bad enough already, can we not repeat last night?"

Well, that sure called her out. "Sorry."

She took a deep breath, tried to pull herself together. She could set the table at least. Jessica did that, ignoring Dorothy's helpful 'advice' about the proper cutlery placement, and then the doorbell rang. Her heart stopped.

"I'll get it!" she called.

She swallowed the bile in her throat before opening the door.

Kilgrave smiled at her. No doubt he thought he looked dapper as hell in his sharp suit and waistcoat. Prick.

"Jessica," he said warmly. "Hello! I brought cake."

And he held the cake box out to her. Chocolate. She wasn't surprised. He was about to step in when Jessica blocked his way.

"No mind control," she said. "That's the deal if you walk in. I have zero tolerance for your bullshit right now, do you hear me?"

"Charming," he said. "We'll talk about this later, but all right. Let me in."

Teeth gritted, she stepped back and let him through.

"Where's the birthday girl?" He smiled. "Trish! Happy birthday."

"Thank you," said Trish, accepting a hug from him too. Ugh.

"Not at all," he said. "Thank you for taking care of Jessica, by the way. I knew she was in safe hands when you came home last night."

It was a pantomime on all sides. Jessica watched the pair of them, her stomach tying itself in knots. She couldn't let her guard down for even a second tonight.

Meanwhile, Dorothy had also sidled over to the kitchen area, her eyes widening when she saw their new guest. "Oh! I recognise you. You invited the journalist?"

That was aimed at Trish, who didn't quite know how to respond. Neither did Jessica. Kilgrave blinked at Dorothy, equally taken aback. Right, Jessica thought. They'd met before. This was going to be… interesting.

"That's right," he replied, recovering quickly. "Lovely to see you again, Ms Walker, I didn't know you were coming." He shot a glance at Jessica as he said that and she smiled tightly. "I'm here with Jessica. Her plus one, so to speak."

And he put his arm around her waist, forcing her to grin and bear it.

"Oh," said Dorothy. "You're a couple? I never would have guessed."

"Dinner's ready!" said Trish, thankfully breaking the awkward tension. "Shall we eat?"

Sitting at the dinner table wasn't much better than crowding around the kitchen. Kilgrave claimed the seat next to her, while Trish and her mother were seated opposite. Trish served the risotto. Kilgrave got to the champagne bottle before she did and poured everyone a glass except her.

"Water for you, I think," he said, and she very nearly throttled him right there.

"Water?" Dorothy asked, always quick to notice these things. "Why aren't you drinking, Jessie?"

She shrugged. "I'm a little hungover."

Kilgrave got her a glass of water. "She's going dry for the month. I think we'd all agree it's for the best."

"I don't," said Jessica sharply, snatching the water. God, she wished it were champagne. That shot she'd had earlier already seemed far too long ago.

Dorothy raised her eyebrows. There was a palpable tension in the room. Trish cast her eyes down, keeping quiet. Jessica stabbed her fork into her food, hoping that their mother would drop the subject, but…

"Well," said Dorothy, because of course she wouldn't leave it alone, "I'd love to hear how the two of you met. How long have you been together?"

"Oh, about nine months. Almost a year, can you believe that, honey?"

He put his hand on her thigh under the table and she tried not to flinch.

Dorothy pursed her lips. "So when you came to see me, you were really snooping around Jessica, not Patsy. I was surprised."

Oh. Jessica looked between the two of them, the rice turning to mush in her mouth. It was entirely possible that Dorothy might work this one out. Not fully. But her adoptive mother had a way of getting at people, and Dorothy knew that Kilgrave had stolen her medical records.

Kilgrave smiled at her. "Not that I don't greatly admire Patsy. You have a beautiful and talented daughter, Ms Walker, but I have to confess it's your other daughter I fell for. Jessica is something else."

Dorothy's smile was much colder. "Well, you're not wrong about that."

"I'm sure she doesn't want to hear about us," said Jessica loudly, again wishing that she had something stronger to drink. "It's Trish's birthday. Let's give a cheer to Trish."

She raised her glass of water, the others following suit with their champagne. Trish exchanged a glance with her over the cheers. This was already exhausting.

"Do you know which birthday my daughter is celebrating?" Dorothy asked.

Kilgrave raised his hands. "I would never ask a lady her age."

Jessica rolled her eyes. He was doing his gentleman shtick. It had been a while since she'd seen it, and people always seemed to buy it.

Even Dorothy, who had moved on to her usual target. "She's thirty, and we all know what that means in Hollywood." Dorothy shook her head at her daughter. "You know, the last thing I expected was for Jessie to find a handsome man before you. Biological clock is ticking, you'd better use this year to get on with it and stop playing around."

Trish's mouth fell open. "Mother! I'm not playing around."

On second thought, maybe they should have stuck to the previous topic. There was a whole different kind of tension in the room now, a very familiar one. Trish looked mortified. Jessica glanced at Kilgrave who was watching this exchange in surprise, a frown creasing his brow.

"You were with your last boyfriend for barely a month before you dumped him. You could at least have given him a chance."

"I told you, I'm focusing on my career."

Dorothy scoffed. "What career? Three years on the radio. You've been pissing your career away. Did you follow up on any of the leads I worked my ass off to get you?"

Jessica's eyes flashed. "Trish's career is none of your goddamn business."

Trish shook her head, her eyes silently pleading. "Mother, can we talk about this some other time?"

"I'm just saying. Thirty should be a wake-up call."

"Well, God knows it is a change," said Kilgrave, his intervention surprising her. "Women are having children later and later these days. It's different from how it used to be, but there's still plenty of time. Jessica and I found love. I'm sure there's someone out there for Patsy too."

"I suppose," Dorothy agreed, somewhat mollified.

Kilgrave winked. "It's never too late."

He was flirting with her. She was going to throw up. Jessica wolfed down her risotto as fast as she could. It was either get away from the dinner table or punch one of them, and she was trying not to do the latter for Trish's sake.

Finally, she wiped her mouth and stood up. "Who's up for dessert? I'll get it."

"I'll come with you," said Kilgrave at once, and there was little she could do to protest.

No chance for a breather then. Back to the kitchen. She took out the cake as Kilgrave came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling her hair.

"Don't touch me, asshole," she muttered. "Go back to brown-nosing."

"No, thank you," he said. "Your mother is a piece of work. Appalling woman. Are you sure you don't want me to compel her?"

Honestly, she was tempted. If there was one person who really deserved it…

She shook her head. "I said no mind control. We can handle her."

"Doesn't look like it. I wanted to ask you something."

Her stomach dropped. She turned around to face him, forcing him to step away from her. "What?"

"Are you mad at me?"

He had that puppy-eyed look, but then he tilted his head and his gaze became altogether more calculating. Oh, God. This wouldn't end well. "Mad at you for what?"

"I don't know." He shifted, shrugging. "You sounded mad on the phone. You're not hiding something, are you?"

Oh, God. Oh, God.

"No," she said.

Her heart was pounding. She felt sure he could hear it.

He frowned. "You've been erratic lately. Going off to Detroit, drinking too much, forgetting to call… I hope you're not hiding anything from me. Relationships are built on trust."

She folded her arms. "You've never built a trusting relationship in your life."

"No, because you know what? People can't be trusted. They run away." His tone darkened. "You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Jessica?"

She shook her head, swallowing. "No."

It was true, if only in the sense that she didn't have anywhere to run to. She was still lying to him. His gaze was piercing; she struggled to meet it.

"Prove it," he said. "Tonight."

"It's Trish's birthday," she protested.

"So?"

It didn't matter. The only thing in the world that mattered to Kilgrave was getting what he wanted, and she couldn't keep him at arm's length forever.

Just a little longer.

Dorothy was calling for dessert. She turned away without answering, Kilgrave picking up a knife while she collected the cake.

They had dessert in the lounge. Kilgrave cut the cake. Dorothy made a fuss about watching her waistline, but she took a slice anyway.

She found a moment to perch next to Trish on the couch. "Sorry for ruining your birthday."

"It's not your fault."

"No, it is." She didn't need that. Pity wouldn't help. "Can you get rid of your mom?"

No matter what, Trish was always a good hostess. She rose to her feet and clapped her hands. "Thank you all for coming. I hope we've all had a great time, but unfortunately I have work tomorrow, so shall we call it a night? Mother, I'll call you a cab."

To her relief, Dorothy didn't protest. She made Trish promise to call her and gave her a hug before trotting off back to the door. Jessica didn't move. She was sitting with Kilgrave's arm around her and she had no intention of saying anything to Dorothy, until Dorothy called her over.

"Jessie? Aren't you going to say goodbye?"

Jessica rolled her eyes. She glanced at Kilgrave but he was unconcerned, letting her go with a shrug. She walked over and folded her arms in the doorway, watching Dorothy tuck her handbag under her arm.

"Bye."

"Bye, darling." Dorothy lowered her voice. "That boyfriend of yours. You'd better tell me about him sooner rather than later. I know a conman when I see one."

And she departed, leaving Jessica staring after her.

* * *

They'd left Trish to clean up. Someday she would have to apologise for all this. The kind of apology that involved taking Trish out and, well, trying to celebrate her thirtieth birthday properly.

Not that she felt like celebrating. They'd reached the end of the line. It was either do what Kilgrave wanted or face the consequences.

"So that was a date," said Jessica, walking over to turn on her lamp. She moved over to the window and checked through the blinds. Yep. Black van still there.

"Our fourth," Kilgrave agreed, coming in after her.

She turned to look at him. "It's getting late. I think you'd better go."

"I'm fine here," he said dismissively. He was picking up her things, what little she had since returning to New York. Make-up on the dresser, a hairbrush, pen, notebook, cell phone.

"You can't stay," she said.

He snapped her notebook shut. "Why not? Don't tell me you're still worried about Trish. I wasn't controlling her. You saw that, right? An entire evening with two women who are frankly insufferable and I didn't use mind control once."

He was right about one thing. She hadn't seen him use any mind control. But the way he pronounced that statement, the way he looked at her as if he expected her never-ending gratitude for showing some basic human decency…

She gave him a look. "So?"

He approached her, hands clasped behind his back. "I think you meant to say 'thank you'."

"I didn't. Be very careful what you say next, Kilgrave. If I don't like it I will hurt you."

"Come on, Jessica."

He took her arm, tried to lean in, and she shook him off. They circled each other. It was stupid, really; she ought to punch him. But she was still wary.

Kilgrave tutted at her. "You and your foreplay."

It was a game to him. Playing hard to get. Every cliché in the book.

"This isn't foreplay. I don't want you here."

His eyes glittered. "You wanted me last night."

"I was out of my mind! You and your fucking dick, is that all that matters to you?"

He didn't like that. She saw it in the way his shoulders tensed, his eyes, the slight pause before he spoke very slowly.

"I don't think you understand. I could have literally anyone in the world and I've chosen you. I crossed an ocean to find you. I waited for you."

"So what, I should feel special? Privileged? What if I don't want to be chosen?"

"But you do."

Her breath caught. It was the one thing he was always certain of and she could never tell. Special. Chosen. Yeah, she was privileged all right. Special enough to be immune to this asshole so she had to watch him use everyone around her to make her comply.

But he was alone now. She'd waited for this.

"I want you to leave," she repeated. "Date night is over. Go home."

He shook his head. "What's wrong with you? Don't be a bitch."

He was trying it again, stepping forward, reaching out to her. He'd invaded her space, her home, her life. Crossed every line he could have crossed. But, if her calculations were correct, more than twelve hours had passed since he might have last controlled Trish.

She slapped him.

It was a satisfying, stinging slap, right on the cheek. Left a red mark. He reeled back with a cry and she didn't give him a chance to recover.

Jessica clamped her hand over his mouth, wrapping her other arm around his waist to drag him out of her room. It was awkward because he was taller than she was, but her strength did the work. She slammed the door open with her shoulder and pulled him with her into the lounge.

He was trying to yell at her. She ignored it, speaking over him: "You listen to me for once, you son-of-a-bitch! Personal boundaries, respect them. When a woman tells you she doesn't want you, she doesn't fucking want you and you need to fucking leave."

"Jessica?"

Fuck.

She should have known.

She whipped around. Trish was behind her, face hard and determined, and Jessica let go of Kilgrave and lunged for her but she was too late to stop it. Trish had the tranquiliser. It was the same one the kidnappers had used.

There was a stab of pain in her arm, and then a wave of dizziness. Jessica froze, in shock, as Trish stepped back.

The last thing she heard was Kilgrave catching his breath, sounding regretful. "This is not what I wanted, Jessica. You should have listened. You never do."

"No," she gasped. Her lips were numb. Black spots danced in front of her eyes, the world blurring into darkness.

She fell.


	20. nightmare barbie's dreamhouse

**xx. nightmare barbie's dreamhouse**

She woke up in a basement.

The only light was artificial, a lamp hanging from the ceiling. Jessica squinted and tried to sit up, only to find that she had been restrained. Her blood ran cold. She was strapped down on a narrow bed with restraints binding her shoulders, wrists, ankles and thighs, plus a wider strap over her stomach. It was like something made for a psychiatric patient, a dangerous one.

Horror filled her. But her limbs were sluggish; she thrashed for maybe five seconds before exhausting herself, the strength going out of her. The tranquiliser. He'd drugged and kidnapped her, had her taken here… He'd taken Trish.

She screamed. It wasn't deliberate; there were no words. It was the harsh, ragged bellow of a wounded animal. _He'd taken Trish._

And he had her. Here… wherever here was.

She could move her head from side to side. That was about it. The room itself was a bedroom, or furnished like one at least. A built-in wardrobe took up one of the walls, there was a bookcase, a rocking chair and a full-length mirror in the corner through which she could see her current sorry state.

She wasn't sure how long she lay there, imagining all the things that might have happened to Trish. Her nose itched. She licked her lips and fidgeted, testing out the restraints. The sedative would wear off. Someone would come in before that happened, she was sure. Until then… Was this his way of torturing her? A punishment for failing to meet his expectations. She'd always disappointed him.

The door to the basement creaked open and her heart leapt into her mouth.

Kilgrave stepped in, closing the door behind him. He had changed since she had last seen him, wearing a simple dark sweatshirt and pants. He walked over to look at her, clasping his hands behind his back, and Jessica glared at him with all the hatred she could muster.

"So you're awake."

There was none of his jollity, no charm or humour or spark in his eyes. He was all business.

Her voice shook. "What have you done with Trish?"

He rolled his eyes to the heavens. "Trish, Trish, it's always about Trish. You're obsessed. That's reason number one why I'm mad at you."

"Reason number… one?"

"Oh, yes, there's more." He paced around the bed, glaring at her. "Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think, did you honestly think that you could challenge me and get away with it?"

No, she thought.

She wasn't surprised. The world hadn't come crashing down so much as she had been given confirmation that yes, everything had turned to shit. It had always been a matter of time, she had known that, she had just… failed to act.

"Nothing to say?" Kilgrave asked. "No, you're scared now, aren't you? So you should be. Answer me this. What really happened in Detroit?"

He knew.

She closed her eyes. It was almost a relief. She'd tried and failed, story over, nothing to see here.

"Jessica! Answer me!"

She looked at him, impatient and angry. "None of your goddamn business."

"Liar." His voice shook. "You lied to me!" He took a cell phone out of his pocket and she recognised it. Hers. "This video, what did you do with it? Did you put it online? Did you show it to anyone?"

"No," she said. A last ditch effort. "No, I was going to, but… The evidence wasn't good enough. I needed more."

"You were going to expose me. You of all people, after everything we've been through."

He was hurt. She was the one strapped down to a bed, and he looked hurt. Something in her snapped.

"Because you deserve it!" she said. "What, did you think that I wanted to be with you? Did you think that a vile, twisted fuck like you could ever truly be loved by anyone? You're a disease. You make me sick–"

"Shut up!"

He screamed it at her. His face twisted and he hurled the phone at the wall, Jessica flinching when it hit. That was her phone gone. If it wasn't broken yet, it soon would be. He was a powder keg waiting to go off.

"Shut up," he growled again, leaning over her. "Trust me, I can make your life a whole lot worse. Patsy told me everything. I know she told the police about me. I'm going to have to deal with that."

"They didn't believe her. If you go back there, you'll only attract their attention."

He straightened up. "Thanks for the advice, but I'm taking no chances. Especially not with you."

She swallowed, breathing hard. She still had no idea where Trish was, but if he'd made her talk… She guessed he wasn't finished with her yet.

"Well," Kilgrave went on. "Patsy and I have things to do. As for you…"

She felt the weight of him sitting down on the bed, panic flaring in her chest. His hand caressed her thigh, slipping under her dress.

"Get off me!"

She struggled viciously, thrashing her limbs and within seconds she was exhausted again, the effects of the tranquiliser turning her muscles to lead.

"Still too weak, I see," he said. "Nice dress, by the way. I would have liked to have peeled it off under different circumstances. We could have been making love. Trish could have been perfectly safe. What you've done has jeopardised us all, you understand that, don't you?"

She stared at him. Her heart was glass.

"Incidentally, the preparation of this room came at the cost of five suicides, so you can add that to your conscience if you like."

"Murderer," she spat.

"Now, now, no name-calling. Let me explain what happens next." His fingers crept slowly upwards. "I can be merciful. I'll give you a choice. Over there–" he indicated the door to her right – "is the way out. If you choose that door, you choose to be with me, like we were before but without the lies and deceit. You can help me clean up your mess. Or you can say no."

She could say no. Like hell she could. He stroked over her underwear and she shuddered, taking a breath.

"What happens if I say no?"

His expression hardened. "You stay here and rot."

"So my choices are fuck you or imprisonment?" She swallowed. "Then leave me here and go stick your dick up your ass, you psychotic windbag."

He stood up. "Good. I thought it would take a while to break you. I'll come back when you're ready to reconsider."

He was almost at the door when she couldn't hold back any longer. "Wait!"

He turned back, raising his eyebrows.

"Trish," she said desperately. "Please. I will choose you, Kilgrave, I promise I will choose you and forget anything about going up against you. Just don't hurt her."

He seemed to consider it, thinking for a moment. His eyes were unfathomable.

"A promise made on the brink," said Kilgrave slowly, "is no promise at all. I'll hold you to it, Jessica. Don't forget."

* * *

She was once again left alone. She might have hoped that he'd forget to drug her, but of course he didn't. No, he was determined to torment her further.

The next person to enter the basement was Chloe.

By this point her lips were dry and cracked and her bladder was full. She was holding back the inevitable. She turned her head and wondered dully what further horrors Kilgrave had in store.

"Hi," said Chloe.

Her hair was longer and the dark circles under her eyes made Jessica wonder if she was having trouble sleeping. But otherwise she looked much the same, an innocent teenager.

"What are you doing here?" Jessica asked.

"I brought you some water." Chloe held up a bottle. "Dad thought you might be thirsty."

She had to lie there and let Chloe tip a little of the water into her mouth, enough to wet her lips. Then a little more and a little more, until she had quenched her thirst.

"Are you okay? And your mom?"

Chloe nodded. "We're fine."

It was a pointless question since she couldn't trust the answer, but she felt like she had to try.

"I'm guessing you can't get me out of here. What about your ability? Could you use it on Kilgrave?"

The girl shook her head. "Dad told me I'm not allowed to use my power on anyone without his permission, especially not him. If you're looking for a way out… There isn't one."

"Have you seen Trish? She's my friend. Blonde, around the same age as me. Did Kilgrave bring her here?"

"I don't know. I don't know who that is." Chloe bit her lip. "I know you'll think it's my dad making me say this, but… I don't think you should fight him. When he built this place, he… he tested it on my mum. He has this whole plan worked out, there are other…"

She stopped abruptly, shaking her head.

"What? What is it?"

Chloe looked distressed. "I can't help you. I'm sorry."

It turned out Chloe wasn't only there to give her water. She had the tranquiliser too, and she stuck it in Jessica's neck with an apologetic look. He was getting his own daughter to do his dirty work. God only knew what else was happening.

* * *

She drifted in and out of consciousness. She could only guess at how much time had passed by the rhythms of her own body, the thirst and hunger that grew in her, the dirt and the damp. By now the bed stank of piss. The second time Chloe returned she had soiled herself too and the girl let out a disgusted sound, holding her nose. Shame burned through her. She had to lie there while Chloe pulled down her underwear and cleaned up the bed, the girl apologising profusely all the while.

She didn't say anything. She looked away.

Chloe returned twice more to let her drink and administer the sedative, but they didn't speak. They both knew that nothing would happen until Kilgrave decided.

It seemed endless. She slept, sometimes. She stared up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and replayed every moment that she might have done something differently. Times she might have escaped. Times she might have avoided his wrath. Everything she had done had led her to this.

He was part of her now. He was twisted up in her life like ivy growing on a tree, from root to branch, slowly, slowly suffocating.

"Well, here's a sorry sight."

He stood over her, nose wrinkling. She stared up at him. How, she thought, had she ever loved this man? How had she not realised the lengths he was willing to go to keep her by his side?

He sighed. "Well, Jessica. Are you ready? My offer still stands."

There was no other option here. She was bone-tired, in more ways than one.

"I'm ready."

"No more lies. You promise to help me."

"I promise."

"And if you're ever tempted to break that promise, remember, this room will be waiting." He shook his head. "It breaks my heart to see you like this. I don't want us to fight."

"I don't either."

"Good." He turned his head, calling up the stairs. "Alice, come down, darling. Come and help Jessica."

Alice. Her stomach wrenched. But she had little in the way of sympathy to offer; she was too exhausted by her own condition. Alice came and unbuckled all the straps holding her down, helped her to sit and then to stand before finally climbing the stairs to the rest of the house, Kilgrave following. The world was spinning; she could hardly stand. Her ass hurt. Her shoulders hurt. Her knees felt odd, unused to walking after however many days she'd spent trapped on that bed.

Alice took her to the bathroom at Kilgrave's command and helped her undress.

"Take a shower," he said. "Clean yourself up."

She had nothing to say. She stripped naked, stared balefully at Kilgrave, and stepped into the shower. He watched. He didn't seem interested, particularly, more like he was assessing the damage that had been done to his favourite toy. She had sores on her backside, the skin red-raw. She had to stretch and roll her shoulders to get them feeling normal again, and of course she was famished.

It took a while for her to feel clean, the water running off her skin. Finally, she stepped out, dried herself off, and then Kilgrave held out his hand. She took it.

He clothed her next, taking her to what looked like the master bedroom, the wallpaper tinted with gold. She didn't recognise this house. Another he'd chosen to occupy, she supposed. He watched her get dressed too. Underwear, vest top, blouse, skinny jeans. Not the worst.

"You must be hungry," he said, and it was when he took her to eat that she realised this was Alice's house. Or rather, the house he was keeping Alice and Chloe in. That explained their presence. It wasn't the same one she'd met them in before; she'd been right that he'd moved them. This house was larger, older; it had the feel of a farmhouse with oak furniture and an open fireplace. The kitchen had a tiled floor that was cold beneath her feet, and when she glanced through the window she couldn't see much beyond a large garden, trees overhanging a tall white-painted fence.

Alice made her soup and she greedily tore off chunks of bread, finally starting to feel more like herself.

"So what, are you just going to watch me?" she asked, giving Kilgrave a look over the table.

He clasped his hands. "I'm making sure you're all right."

"No thanks to you."

"You deserved what you got." His tone was sharp. "Frankly, you should be grateful."

She lowered her eyes. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"You're with me now. Properly. Do you understand what I'm giving you?"

"A second chance?" she hazarded.

"A last chance. Don't squander it."

She nodded. "Thank you."

Her tone was submissive, but her mind was racing. A last chance or… what? What could be worse than this? The look he gave her was an appraising one and Jessica looked down again, focusing on her meal. She was in a strange house with no idea where she was or where Trish was, and she was as much Kilgrave's prisoner as Alice and Chloe were. At what point could she risk asking after Trish? He wouldn't like it; he'd made that clear already.

She would have to play the long game.

* * *

He showed her around. "Our room you've already seen… Alice stays here… And Chloe's room here. I chose this place for all of us."

"Including the torture chamber in the basement?"

"No, that's my kinky sex dungeon." She looked away and he chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm joking. Think of it as a naughty step. Behave as you should and you won't have to go there again."

God, he… He was treating it like a slap on the wrist, like he didn't recognise the inhumanity of what he had done. The hallway closed in around her. She couldn't be in this wretched house.

"I need some air."

"Of course."

He took her arm, the gentleman escorting a lady, and showed her outside. The sun beat down. A light breeze stirred her hair. She'd never missed it this much, the sky, Christ, she missed the sky. She looked up and thought about flying away. Up, up, into the blue, higher than the skyscrapers, beyond the clouds and away from this city.

But she'd never learned to fly and Kilgrave was holding her arm.

He walked around the garden with her. That gave her an opportunity to scope out the surrounding area: the Mercedes parked on the gravel driveway, the tree-lined avenue, and the other large houses nearby each set back in their own grounds. They were in the heart of rich-people suburbia. Where, she didn't know. She figured they were still in New York City, but not an area she was familiar with. She counted four guards watching the exits, including Hank outside the front door.

"So what do you think?" Kilgrave asked when they stepped back inside. "Do you like it?"

"It's… a beautiful house."

That was the only truthful answer she could manage, but it seemed to be enough, Kilgrave beaming back at her.

"I knew it was perfect as soon as I saw it. Wish I'd grown up in a place like this."

He picked up a framed photograph of Alice and Chloe from the mantelpiece, something of a wistful look on his face. There were other photographs too. She stepped closer to look at them: a portrait of Chloe, a snap of Jessica at one of the many restaurants they'd dined at, another of her posing in a sparkly silver dress before a night out, and finally the picture that she'd given him as a Christmas present, the one she'd taken of herself in Hyde Park. Smiling, happy Jessica. Carefree Jessica.

"You kept it," she said, half in surprise, half in wonder. Kilgrave never kept anything.

He put the first photograph back on the mantelpiece and looked where she was looking. "Of course I did. It's… Well, it's important to me. You're important to me."

She tried to smile. It came out wrong, wobbly and lopsided. She asked to sit down and rest, with the excuse that she was still feeling light-headed. It wasn't entirely untrue.

She was starting to get an idea of what he wanted from her and it was hell.

* * *

Later, after Chloe arrived home from school, they all sat down for dinner. She felt better with two square meals in her. Her sores were still sore, but not as bad as earlier, and her muscles were less stiff too.

She hadn't yet broached the subject of Trish. She was working up to that.

"This is good, isn't it?" said Kilgrave. "The four of us back together."

Alice and Chloe made sounds of agreement and she couldn't tell if it was down to the mind control or because they'd learned never to contradict him. Jessica kept her head down.

"We missed you," he went on. "Poor Alice never heard the end of it while you were gone."

She didn't want to think about what that meant. "Well, I'm here now. You've got me."

"Did you miss us?" Chloe asked.

She looked at the girl – this poor girl, who had been forced to help keep her hostage – and her big brown eyes that were so like Kilgrave's, and it was impossible to tell if those words came from her mouth. She was his puppet, Jessica reminded herself. Kilgrave might well want her to form an attachment to his daughter. It gave him another person to use as leverage against her.

It was working.

"Yeah," said Jessica softly. "Yeah, I missed you."

"Tell us," said Kilgrave. "What was it like being back in New York, striking out on your own?"

She shrugged. "Honestly I spent most of my time waiting for you to come back."

"Huh," he said.

"I knew that you would. I should have disappeared when I had the chance."

"But you didn't."

"Maybe I realised that I didn't have anything else to do without you." She smiled, mouth tight. "Maybe all I'm good for is being with you."

"You think so?"

"I don't know."

"Dad," said Chloe. "Can I go do my homework now?"

"Of course, darling. Off you go, and behave." Once Chloe had departed, Kilgrave dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and then stood up. "Time for me to go. Alice, clean up and get Jessica ready for me. I'll see you later."

Jessica blinked, nonplussed. "You're leaving?"

"I'll be back soon."

He was already walking out and she was so confused that she went after him, grabbing his arm. His eyes flashed and Jessica flinched, breathless.

"I said I'll be back soon. What do you want?"

"I…" She licked her lips. "Are you going to see Trish? Where is she?"

A flicker of annoyance passed across his face. "Save that for another day, Jessica. I'm tired of hearing it."

"Then what's going on?"

"I'll tell you later," he promised. "See you soon."

He kissed her on the cheek before heading out, Jessica staring after him. Her heart thumped. Was this a test? Then again, he still had his security guards and he'd probably ordered Alice and Chloe to stop her if she tried to escape. She turned back and looked in on Chloe who was doing her homework in the lounge, wishing that she could whisk her away. The girl didn't seem unhappy or troubled, but…

Jessica remembered her face in the basement, that mixture of horror, pity and disgust. No child should have to endure that.

"Jessica," said Alice.

Oh. Right. He'd ordered Alice to get her ready, whatever that meant. Alice took her arm, guiding her upstairs to the bathroom. Jessica knew better than to stop her. When Kilgrave gave an order, people had to obey. They went mad if that desire was frustrated.

"Are you feeling better?" Alice asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, much better. What are we doing?"

She got the answer to that question when she walked into the bathroom. She was clean, but not presentable. Kilgrave wanted her dolled up. With Alice's help, she shaved and moisturised, filed and painted her nails, did her hair and make-up. Alice fussed over the bruises and welts on her skin, wanting to cover them, but Jessica shrugged her off.

"There's nothing you can do."

She'd done the beauty routine often enough that it was automatic, her mind straying elsewhere while her body was trimmed and plucked and painted. She thought about picking up that razor, digging the blade into her wrists. Painting herself red. That would give him something to worry about, wouldn't it? He'd have to rush her to hospital if she didn't bleed out first, and maybe that was the only leverage she had left. Her body, the thing he wanted unmarred and whole, even after the abuse it had suffered at his behest.

In the bedroom she changed into the attire that had been left out for her: black silk lingerie and a matching negligee. Alice helped her undress. She didn't have the energy to be embarrassed.

She sat on the bed with her knees drawn up and hugging her legs, and as Alice stepped back, her task complete, the light in her eyes changed.

"God forgive me," she whispered, backing away.

Jessica looked up. "Wait."

Alice was trembling, unable to meet her eyes.

"It's not your fault," said Jessica. "Whatever he made you do, it's not your fault, all right?"

"I hate him," said Alice. "I want to tear him apart limb from limb. Every day with him kills me a little bit more. I can't… I can't keep smiling. I can't stop it."

It was as though a dam had burst, the words pouring out of her. Had Kilgrave's control worn off? _Something_ had. She sat up, suddenly alert.

"Alice. Hold on for me, okay? Is there anything you can tell me? Anything I should know?"

"He made me pretend to be you." Alice's whisper was almost inaudible. "He called me Jessica and pretended that Chloe was our daughter… your daughter. But I… I wasn't good enough, I didn't measure up. I'm just a nanny. That's all."

Jessica stared at her, stricken. Every word made her sick. She knew that Alice was a glorified slave, there to take care of Chloe and the house and all the things Kilgrave couldn't be bothered to do, but this shocked her.

"I'm sorry." She swallowed; her tongue felt thick in her mouth. "I'm here now, I'll distract him. He won't need to use you like that again."

Alice nodded. "I'd better go."

She left the room, closing the door behind her, and Jessica let out a breath. What was going on? She couldn't trust Alice. Maybe enough of Kilgrave's control had slipped that Alice had been able to express her feelings, or maybe he was fiendish enough to let Alice do that and lull her into a false sense of security.

Whatever the poor woman had suffered, it was enough. It was her fault that the two of them were here. She'd abandoned them before. She couldn't do so again.

* * *

So she waited. She stayed exactly where Kilgrave had put her, on the bed, in her lingerie, ready to perform. Time spent waiting for Kilgrave wasn't really time at all. The show only began when he walked in. Until then… she was nothing. A mannequin posed for his pleasure.

She heard him come upstairs and swung her legs over the side of the bed, tossing back her hair.

He knocked at the door. "Jessica, I'm back."

 _Come here, Jessica._

 _Smile, Jessica._

 _Beg me for it._

She couldn't do it. Her face froze; she couldn't rearrange it. He came in and she crossed her legs.

"It's getting late."

He took off his suit jacket and tie, fingers working at the knot. "I know. Long day."

"Where were you?"

"Hmm?"

"You said you would tell me."

"Later," he said. "Not now. We've got a lot to catch up on, you and I."

She waited for him to elaborate but he didn't. He was looking at her, his gaze sweeping along her bare legs, black silk and lace, scarlet mouth.

"You'll have to be gentle," she said. "I'm still sore."

"I can be gentle." He climbed on the bed, reaching out to touch her shoulder, and she resisted from flinching away. "I missed this."

She forced herself to say it: "Me too."

"You're beautiful, Jessica." He stroked her hair. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

He leaned forward and captured her mouth. Jessica closed her eyes, accepting the kiss but not doing anything with it. She was cold. This was… harder than she'd thought it would be. She'd thought that she was used to his touch, and yet her skin felt clammy, every muscle screaming at her to get away.

A tear tangled in her eyelash. Kilgrave noticed it, frowning. "You're upset."

"No, I'm not," she lied.

He brushed the tear out of her eye. "It doesn't have to be this way. You can embrace me. You have that power."

"I don't. I can't choose how I feel."

"How do you feel?"

Her eyes burned. "I hate you."

He didn't take it as badly as she might have thought. Instead he seemed to consider it, examining her face, his eyes searching hers. He drew her closer, hand cupping her cheek. She recognised the intent, the way he moved, the way his gaze settled on her lips. He kissed her, and this time she kissed him back.

He drew back. "Better?"

She nodded. Still a lie. She leaned up, open, vulnerable, and closed her eyes as her mouth met his. They were only bodies. She was familiar with the warmth of his lips, the way he embraced her. She had nothing to give him that he hadn't already taken.

His hands caressed her body. His mouth kissed her neck, stomach, breasts. She was stripped bare, bruised and aching, and she grimaced as he slid into her, but she let him, she let him do it. After a while it felt good. Cold sweat turned into fever; she cried out.

Her skin was tainted anyway. He couldn't dirty it any further.


	21. collateral damage

**xxi. collateral damage**

Kilgrave awoke wanting and she dreading. She took care of him in the morning too, brushed her teeth to get the taste out of her mouth and then cried in the shower, to her own shame. It was too late. She'd given him what he wanted and would have to do so again. The terms had been set.

 _As long as he's with me, he's not doing this to anyone else. I'm keeping them safe._

Meanwhile, she was bracing herself to ask about Trish.

She joined him in the kitchen for a morning coffee. She'd expected Alice to make them breakfast but when she asked, he shook his head.

"She's not here, she's taking Chloe to school."

She hesitated. "Do you want me to make you something?"

"Porridge would be nice."

Right. Fine. She made breakfast with zero help from Kilgrave who didn't even know where the dishes were kept, let alone anything else. She nearly burned the milk but saved it at the last minute.

"Thank you," he said when she set his bowl down in front of him, which was more than he normally bothered to do.

She sat down at the table. "You're welcome."

"Busy day today. I've got some preparations to make."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Preparations?"

"I'll tell you. But first I want the truth from you. Are you ready to tell it?"

No give without take. He wasn't satisfied with her story. She swallowed a mouthful of porridge before nodding.

"Good," said Kilgrave. "Now Trish was under the impression that you were planning something to stop me, but she didn't know what. You'd decided not to tell her, thinking that I might get it out of her. Smart girl. So, she didn't know the truth about your visit to Detroit. My question is: was there anything else? Any other schemes you're hiding from me?"

…Well. She stared at him, trying to read his face. This was another test, she thought. He knew more than he was letting on and he was testing her to see if she 'fessed up. Or was he double bluffing her, and this was a way of getting information that he didn't actually know? She had to weigh up the possibilities, decide on the bigger risk to take. Tell the truth, sabotage her own plans and risk giving him new information. Or withhold the truth and risk him instantly knowing that she was still lying to him.

When she thought of it like that… She couldn't face going back into that basement. Not right now.

She licked her lips. "I went to the police. I showed the video to someone at the station and he took a copy. I know they had correspondence with the department in Detroit too. They talked to Fiona but she denied that any mind control ever happened. I don't think they had a case."

"Ah," he said. "Honesty at last. Refreshing, isn't it? So for all we know, that video could have been seen by half the precinct. That's just great."

"Why do you care?" she asked. "They dismissed it. Fiona said that I made her say those things. No one took it seriously."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

"What do you mean?"

"Your man at the station, Detective Clemons. I spoke to him. Very responsible man, responsible enough to report your allegations to his superiors, even if he didn't believe them himself. _Someone_ is taking them seriously. They've been having you watched."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What?"

"You saw. You pointed it out to Trish. Black van outside your apartment."

"But that was…" She stopped, stunned. "I thought that was you."

"Nope. We were being followed. So I've asked Trish to set a trap."

"A… trap?"

"That's right. Detective Clemons has volunteered to catch me. Trish has volunteered to be the bait. There's going to be a sting operation, tonight. Everyone involved in the case will be there. That's our chance. We'll take them out in one fell swoop."

Her head was spinning. If all the officers on the case were going to be there, did that mean… He was going to kill them? And what did he mean by Trish being the bait?

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because you're going to help me."

She felt shaky. Not only physically, though there was that too. But if she understood correctly, he was going to blow apart everything she had tried to do over the past few weeks.

He explained the plan. There would be a decoy Kilgrave, some other poor man dressed as him, who would accompany Jessica to the apartment. Trish would pretend it was him; the police believed that she was inviting the pair over for dinner. Cue the cops storming in, guns blazing, wearing helmets and gear to block out Kilgrave's commands. It was her job to take them out.

Meanwhile, Clemons had been ordered to destroy any remaining evidence at the station. The entire case would disappear.

As far as plans went, it seemed sound, if horrific. Kilgrave would be in no danger. He wouldn't even be there. And he'd no doubt planned in Trish's presence to make sure she didn't try to sabotage it either.

"How many cops?" she asked, her mind racing.

"Eight of them," he said. "No trouble for you, I'm sure."

"You want me to kill _eight people_?"

"Not on your own. You'll have my body double to help you."

She put her head in her hands. Suddenly she felt rather sick. "I can't believe this."

"I know it seems drastic. But it's better to nip this in the bud. If I let this drag out any longer, more people will hear about me and there'll be even more collateral damage."

"That's what this is to you? Collateral damage?"

"Hey," he said. "Don't forget, none of this would be happening if it weren't for you. You caused this mess. It's only fair that you help deal with it."

"What about you? What will you be doing?"

His eyes glittered. "Watching."

* * *

Kilgrave disappeared for the rest of the day. Doing his preparations, she supposed. In the meantime she had a matter of hours to figure out what she was going to do.

Killing eight people…

She couldn't. That was a massacre. She went outside, sitting on the porch to get some air and to think. If she ran, she might derail Kilgrave's plans but most likely he'd go ahead without her and they'd all die anyway. If she tried to interfere, to stop it happening, probably something awful would happen to Trish, Alice or Chloe, or all three. If she knocked out Kilgrave, tried to hand him over to the police… Well, his guards would be all over her and she had no idea what he'd done with Trish.

That was the hard part. The unknown. If she fucked up at any point, then it was either back to the basement or someone she cared about would get hurt.

If she killed him…

She shuddered. _Once a murderer, always a murderer._ Even then, she didn't know what would happen. He'd probably ordered everyone she cared about to kill themselves too. The ultimate failsafe.

Her own thoughts were tripping her up; she couldn't get past all the ways he could stop her. She needed a second opinion.

Jessica shouted at the door. "Hey, Alice! Alice?"

Alice came running. "Jessica? Do you need anything?"

"Let's talk." She pointed. "Come on, sit."

Alice looked dubious but joined her on the wooden step, clasping her hands in her lap. She would have to be careful about this. Alice was still within the limits of Kilgrave's control and he could make her report back anything they said.

"I wanted to ask you something. In all the time you've been with Kilgrave… Did you ever try to escape?"

"Oh." Alice looked away. "I didn't, but… Chloe did."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"She tried to sneak off in the middle of the night. One of the guards caught her."

"Did she try to fight? Use her powers?"

Alice frowned. "Use her powers? She couldn't."

"Because Kilgrave told her not to."

"No... This was when he was away. His control had worn off."

"Yeah, so if he wasn't controlling her, then couldn't she take out the guard?"

"That's not how her power works."

Alice was looking at her like she ought to know this already, leaving Jessica nonplussed. "But she can knock out people by touching them–"

"No," Alice interrupted her. "No, he thought that too, but we tested it and it didn't work. Didn't he tell you what happened the first time?"

"He told me that she knocked him out. I saw it happen."

Realisation dawned in Alice's eyes. "He doesn't want you to know."

"Know what?"

The woman shook her head. "I shouldn't tell you. If Kilgrave doesn't want you to know, I shouldn't tell you."

Jessica caught her breath. She realised that her nails were digging into her lap and shifted, leaning forward. This was important. Anything that Kilgrave didn't want her to know, she wanted to know.

"Alice, if you can tell me, tell me. I need to know."

"No, you don't." Alice's expression was stubborn. "I'll tell you what you do need to know. What he did to us after he found out that she tried to escape."

Oh.

"He asked me how I would punish her for running away," Alice continued, her voice shaking, "and I said that I would ground her for a week. So he took us down to the basement and he made Chloe strap me to that bed, like he did to you. And he said that it was my fault. My fault that Chloe tried to run away. I wasn't a good enough mother, I wasn't taking care of her properly. So I was the one to be grounded."

Anything she said now would be hollow, meaningless. Jessica listened with a dull sort of horror. Was there more?

"Chloe begged him to let me out. She promised that she wouldn't try to run away again, so he did. He said he was only testing it anyway. That room wasn't for me."

"It was for me," Jessica finished. "He built it for me."

But he could use it to torture any of them. Clearly that possibility hadn't eluded him.

"Why are you asking?" Alice looked at her. "Are you thinking about escaping?"

"No," said Jessica quickly. "No, I just… want to know how he's been treating you."

"I'll try to believe that. It would help if you made it more convincing."

"It's the truth." She had to be firm; she understood what Alice was saying. "Look, I know you're suffering. I know."

"Do you? He doesn't control you, Jessica. It's never happened to you. The first night we got here, he caught me praying. He rolled his eyes, took away my necklace, and told me it was all rubbish. I spent that whole night with this void inside me because I stopped believing in God. He did that. He didn't even think about it."

Jessica swallowed. "I'm sorry."

Alice gave a shaky smile. "In a way it's a relief to say it. I can't talk about it with Chloe. I have to… I have to look after her."

"But you can talk about it with me." She frowned. "Why is that?"

Did Kilgrave want her to know all this? Surely not.

"I don't know." Alice shrugged. "I suppose he hasn't bothered to stop me or change my feelings. I'm grateful for that."

Grateful to have some part of her that was still the real Alice. If this was the real Alice. _Don't trust anything_ , Jessica reminded herself.

"You look tired," she said. "Why don't you go take a nap?"

"I'm supposed to look after you…"

She put on a smile. "And you're doing an awesome job! I feel so much better with the fresh air, having a nice chat… I'm doing great. You can take a break."

"You're not hungry, or thirsty, or… you don't need anything?"

"Nope."

"Okay," said Alice reluctantly, standing up. "But shout if you need anything. And I need to be up to pick up Chloe."

"Sure, I'll wake you."

Maybe some part of Alice realised what she was doing. She wasn't stupid. Maybe that same part of her wanted to give Jessica some space, as much space as it was possible to give under Kilgrave's orders.

She'd never really tried circumventing his commands before. How elastic were they? How specific had Kilgrave been? They had over three hours before Alice was due to pick Chloe up from school. Jessica gave it fifteen minutes before checking in on Alice in her room to find her sound asleep. The security guards were patrolling outside the house.

Right. She had some space. Time to use it.

* * *

Three hours later and her search of the house had turned up very little. He hadn't bothered to hide his laptop, but it was password-protected. She tried typing in _Jess1ca_. No go. There were no phones in the house, no other way of contacting the outside world. Where was the stuff he'd drugged her with? She couldn't find it. There were headache pills in the bathroom cabinet but nothing else remotely drug-like. She swallowed her fear and went back down to search the basement, but there was nothing there either.

She'd been so sure that it had to be here. How else could he make good on his promise to trap her in the basement again if she stepped out of line?

"Jessica, I'm home!"

Shit. She'd forgotten to wake Alice. She ran up to get her and to her relief Alice emerged from her room of her own accord, rubbing her eyes.

"Ladies?"

He was at the foot of the stairs and he watched the pair come down to meet him, Alice in front.

"You should be picking up Chloe from school," said Kilgrave. "Go on, and come back as soon as you can. I want to talk to Jessica."

Alice went off without a word, and at least he hadn't noticed that she was still bleary-eyed from her nap. No, he was looking at her. Jessica stepped down to the hallway, resting her hand on the bannister. What did he want?

"We're ready," he said.

"For tonight?"

He nodded.

It was hard to summon up any feelings about it. She'd searched for a way out and turned up nothing.

"What happens tonight is for you," he said. "You know that, don't you?"

"I know."

"You can be honest with me." His eyes were sharp. "Are you having second thoughts?"

Clever, she thought. For all the layers of bullshit that he built around them, he could still peer right through, into the core. She wasn't a killer. Maybe she was deluding herself about that too, but…

"I don't want to kill anyone," she said, figuring a half-truth was better than a lie. "But why ask? It's not like I can avoid it."

"You could," he said. "You could stay at home and let me take care of it, if you want."

She stared. What was he playing at now?

"But you need me as a stooge."

"I can get a stand-in. Fake Jessica, fake me. The plan will still work."

"I thought you wanted me to help."

"I do. But I know how bad you felt about Carl. I don't want you to do something you might regret."

This was a test. It was always a test. He was watching her intently and she felt the pressure of having to make an instant decision. What if, what if… If she stayed out of it, remained in the house, then the plan would go ahead and every police officer involved in the case would die. She could try to run away, take Alice and Chloe with her, but what about Trish? Or she could go after Trish… but what about Alice and Chloe?

Could she save all three of them? Was it possible?

If she went along with the plan, well, she was in a position to save Trish, but not Alice and Chloe. She'd have to double back for them.

"What?" said Kilgrave, and she blinked, looking at him. "Tell me what you're thinking."

She gave him a tight smile. That was the one thing he couldn't do. He could threaten her, take her hostage, take the people she cared about, control everyone and anyone around her, fuck her every day and every night if he wanted to, but no matter what he did, her mind was her own. She was a black box that he couldn't get into.

 _I'm still here_ , she thought. _I see you._

"I'm coming," she said.

* * *

The sun hung low in the sky. It was hot, Jessica sweating in a thin blouse as the cab pulled up outside Trish's apartment. She was accompanied by Kilgrave's stooge, a thin man with brown hair. His face looked nothing like Kilgrave's but she supposed that didn't matter. He'd look convincing enough from a distance.

He took her arm and they entered the building. She didn't ask his name. He was going to die soon anyway; it was better that she didn't know.

 _West 246th Street. Grosvenor Avenue._

She repeated it to herself like a mantra. It was where she had to get back to. The house where she had last seen Alice and Chloe returning from school, the porch and the green painted door, the Mercedes parked outside, the leafy avenue. She had it all in her head.

Fake Kilgrave knocked at the door. Jessica looked away.

 _West 246th Street. Grosvenor Avenue. Black Mercedes. Green door._

"It's open, come in!"

Fake Kilgrave pushed the door open and walked inside. Her chest tightened. She didn't know why, but part of her didn't want to see inside the apartment, didn't want to set foot in there. Maybe she didn't want to see Kilgrave's version of Trish. He contaminated everything he touched, twisted a place into something that belonged only to him.

She clenched her fists and stepped inside.

And there was Trish.

Trish ran to her, throwing out her arms, and for a moment Jessica hugged her tight and buried her nose in sweet-smelling hair, relieved beyond words.

Then she stepped back. "Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?"

"No… I'm okay. Believe me, I'm fine. Did he tell you the plan?"

She looked fine. The apartment looked fine. Better, actually, since Jessica wasn't there to mess it up.

Jessica went to the window, peering through the blind. "He's setting up a trap. I see them."

The cops were already there, getting out of their cars. God, he'd left her with no time at all. She turned back, and both Trish and fake Kilgrave were holding guns.

"We'll take care of this," said Trish. "Can you watch our backs?"

There it was, the contamination. Trish and this stranger who was probably a bank manager in real life, transformed into G.I. fucking Jane and Joe. They were about to face a shootout against eight cops. Had Kilgrave rigged the game in their favour? Or did he want Trish to die?

That was the one outcome she couldn't risk.

"No," said Jessica.

"Three minutes!" said Trish, and then looked at Jessica, aghast. "What? Jess, we need your help. We can't do this without you."

"I know."

She approached fake Kilgrave as if intending to join them. She'd played along so far, hadn't she? When they'd been alone in the house. When Chloe had returned home from school. When she'd been in the car with this poor bastard wearing a cheap knock-off of Kilgrave's purple suit. She'd played along because he had Trish.

Well, not anymore. She'd said it and he'd failed to listen.

Trish was a red fucking line.

She raised her fist and dealt fake Kilgrave a blow to the back of the head. He went down with a cry, the gun clattering to the floor.

Trish next. "Jess, what the hell–"

No mercy. She couldn't be gentle. She grabbed Trish's arm, yanked away the gun and then dragged her bodily over to the balcony where she shoved the glass door open and stepped into the warm evening air. Trish was not a passive hostage. She kicked, thrashed and screamed, her hair blowing into Jessica's eyes, and Jessica swore, shifting her weight so that the arm holding the gun pressed over Trish's neck and her other arm wrapped around Trish's waist.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

"Shut up!"

She leaned awkwardly over the balcony edge. The street was empty, like she'd thought. The cops had abandoned their cars and were all in the building. They'd be arriving at the apartment any minute. With any luck they'd find the unconscious fake Kilgrave, take him in for questioning, and live to solve this case another day.

"Stop it! No! Let me go!"

Goddamn, Trish had some lungs on her. The shrieking hurt her ears. She adjusted again, hauling Trish over her shoulder like a sack of meat, keeping firm hold of the gun in her other hand. Then she walked back. Five paces. Enough of a run-up.

"Hold on!" she said.

"Stop! Police!"

Fuck them. Fuck them all. She ran, bent her knees, took a flying leap… She had hold of Trish, the wind rushing past them, her legs flailing. Her balance was all skewed, the roof of the building across the street coming up to meet them with alarming speed–

She landed, rolled forward, lost her grip on Trish, and somewhere along the way all the breath had been knocked out of her but she still had the gun and she sprang up, panting, running over to check on Trish–

Trish was on her hands and knees, coughing.

"I'm fine," she said, holding up a hand to stop Jessica helping her up. "Bruised and dizzy, but… okay. I can't believe you did that."

"Get up," said Jessica. "Come on, move!"

Trish got to her feet and they were facing each other now, catching their breath.

"You came to save me." Trish's smile was soft and sad. "He knew you would. I'm sorry, Jess. You failed the test."

Jessica stared at her. Oh.

 _Oh, shi–_

The apartment exploded.

The blast whited out her vision and left her ears ringing. She stumbled back, blinking, coughing; a cloud of smoke drifted over them, making her eyes smart.

They were across the street and the building they were standing on had shuddered beneath her feet. She felt unsteady even now, the shock reverberating through her body. As her senses came back into focus, she saw the fire spreading, the blackened stone… The apartment block itself was miraculously still standing but who knew for how long. Trish's apartment… A mess of broken glass, shrapnel and ash. Gone, just like that.

Bodies too, she thought. Nine of them, maybe more if other residents were caught in the blast.

No time to dwell on that.

Alarms wailed. She turned to Trish, who should have been shell-shocked, to find her busy on her phone.

"Stop!" Jessica grabbed the phone before Trish could evade her and scanned the screen. Address book. Had she been about to call Kilgrave? "Stay right there," she added, watching Trish. She wouldn't put it past him to make her jump off the building.

Trish folded her arms. "What are you gonna do?"

Jessica scrolled through the contacts, a name catching her eye.

 _Mom._

Well, there was an idea.

* * *

"My baby!" Dorothy cried, seeing the soot on Trish's cheek. She wiped it off, fussing over her daughter. "That explosion is all over the news, we need to get you to a hospital right away."

"No," said Jessica sharply. "I told you, Trish is out of her mind, she could hurt people."

"I'm right here!" said Trish. "Mother, I'm fine."

Jessica ignored her. Trish hadn't tried to escape or kill herself or do anything untoward since Jessica had grabbed her phone, which frankly made her more paranoid. The car had picked them up a block away from the explosion. Jessica hadn't wanted to get caught by the emergency services or by Kilgrave. But this was clearly a scenario that Kilgrave had planned for. What was he thinking?

"Did you bring the sleeping pills?" Jessica asked.

"Yes," said Dorothy, passing them over, "but you owe me an explanation, Jessie. What's going on?"

She shoved three of the pills into Trish's hand. "Take them."

Trish gave her a look but acquiesced, Jessica watching her closely to make sure she swallowed them. The only way she was going to beat Kilgrave was by doing things he didn't expect. Things he couldn't have anticipated.

She figured that bringing Trish's mom into the mix was one of them.

Dorothy had instructed her chauffeur to take them home. They drove through Manhattan as the natural light faded and the traffic lights blared, in a car with blacked-out windows and plenty of room for a private conversation. They were as safe as they could be given the shit show she was in the middle of.

"Jess…" Trish tapped her arm. She was beginning to look sleepy. "I want my phone."

"Go to sleep."

Meanwhile, Dorothy gave a pointed look at the gun in Jessica's lap.

Fine. She met Dorothy's eyes. "Kilgrave did this. The stalker we told you about, that's him. He got hold of Trish, I don't know what he did to her but she's seriously messed up. Don't let her wake up for at least twelve hours. Keep her away from people and don't let her contact anyone."

"So he was after Patsy all along. I knew there was something off about him. I'll call the police."

"No! No police. No media. No hospital. He has contacts. He can use any of them to get to you."

Dorothy paused from digging into her handbag. "And what are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna go after that asshole and tear him a new one. Let me out here, I'll take a cab. Do you have any cash?"

Dorothy handed over a hundred dollar bill. Jessica had to give it to the woman, she was taking this seriously. Next to her, Trish had slumped down in her seat, eyes closed.

"You can pull up here!" Dorothy called to the chauffeur.

As the car slowed down, Jessica fixed her gaze on Dorothy for one last time. "Listen to me. Kilgrave is a lunatic and you don't want your daughter anywhere near him. Take her somewhere safe, don't talk to anyone, don't tell anyone where you're going. I'll call you when I can."

She was about to open the car door when Dorothy caught her arm and tipped out the contents of her handbag. "Take it. You don't want to be caught carrying an unlicensed firearm."

It was a vintage handbag, real leather, crocodile print. Probably cost thousands of dollars. She nodded at her surprisingly-not-an-asshole-today mother, hid the handgun inside the bag and stepped out of the car with it, leaving Trish behind.

* * *

 _West 246th Street. Grosvenor Avenue._

She was here. Back where she'd started, at the house that Kilgrave built. Of course there were two giant flaws in her plan. One: she had no idea where Kilgrave was. Two: she was gambling that Alice and Chloe were still here. The taxi ride had taken a good twenty five minutes. Kilgrave must know by now that she had gone rogue. He could have moved them. He could have set another trap. He could have done anything.

Had she been right to leave Trish with her mother? She couldn't think about that. Couldn't think about the pile of bodies in Trish's apartment either. There were too many things to process today and she hadn't had time for any of them.

No, it was dark and she'd made a promise to herself that she wouldn't abandon Alice and Chloe again. She would get them out no matter the cost.

So, here she was, hidden in some shrubbery in sight of the house. Trish's cell phone tucked in her back pocket. Gun in hand. She'd checked it, flicking the safety catch on and off. It was off now, she thought. She'd never used a gun before. From this vantage point she could see the guard at the porch, the glint of a firearm at his hip. Maybe she could shoot him from here. But she didn't want to risk it; she wasn't going to win in a firefight against trained professionals.

Up close and personal, then. If the guards were here, that meant Alice and Chloe were probably still here too. She had a chance.

She stood up and walked right towards the house in full view, holding the gun behind her back. "Hey, asshole! I'm home!"

The guard's hand flew to his hip but he didn't draw his weapon, not yet. "Ms. Jones?"

She whipped out the gun from behind her back. Pointed it at his leg. Squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

She squeezed again. And again. Nothing. Shit. Had she got the safety on? The guard had his gun ready so, fuck it – she dropped it and charged forward, bowling into the guard's midriff and slamming him to the ground. There was a terrific _crack_ – she felt something whistle past her head – but she grabbed the man's head and bashed it once, twice into the wooden step of the porch, leaving him bloody and unconscious or bloody and dead, she didn't know which.

Too late for that. She heard shouts. The rest of the team would be coming after her.

She turned a corner and there was another guard already – she grabbed his hand and twisted until his wrist snapped. He yelped, dropped his weapon, then she kneed him in the groin and slammed him into the wall. She barely heard the cries and grunts of pain. She was fucking _done_.

"Stop! I will shoot!"

She turned again, rolling her eyes. "Hi, Hank."

The only one with a name. Wouldn't stop her. He approached slowly, warier than his colleagues.

"Put your hands up. We have you surrounded."

He indicated behind her and she glanced back. Yep. The fourth guard was approaching her from the other side of the yard. She raised her hands. They were getting closer. On the ground beside her, the second guard groaned, struggling to his feet. Jessica glanced back and forth, calculating the distance.

"Don't move!" said Hank, perhaps sensing what she was about to do.

"I'm not," said Jessica, and flung the recovering guard at Hank before leaping up to the roof.

If she were playing ten pin bowling, she'd have scored a strike by now. Guard number two hit Hank with sufficient velocity to knock them both down, while guard number four cried out in shock. Another gunshot pinged off the drainpipe; she tore across the guttering and dropped down onto the fourth guard's head. His gun went spinning into the grass.

That left Hank. She sensed movement out of the corner of her eye and hoisted the fourth guard's body in front of her just in time. The bullets hit his chest, the force slamming her back too and suddenly there was blood everywhere, fucking hell–

"Fuck!"

That was Hank, presumably feeling some kind of emotion after shooting his own colleague. Her sympathy was limited. Kilgrave had been at pains to tell her that he paid his security team so he didn't have to control them. They'd kept a mother and child captive for weeks.

So she threw the bloody corpse at Hank and he dodged this time but Jessica was already running at him; she caught him square in the chest with her shoulder, knocking him down, and then stamped on his hand so hard he curled up and bellowed in agony. She grabbed his gun.

Right. Four guns. She collected up all of them, tossed three on the roof because she couldn't think of anywhere else to hide them, and kept the fourth. Kilgrave might have tricked her with an empty handgun earlier but she was sure these weapons had bullets. Her blouse was dirty, bloody and torn. So were her jeans. She briefly checked her back pocket and yes, the phone was still there. Good.

She strode over to the back door and kicked it in. "Alice! Chloe!"

Nothing. The lights were on and someone must have called the police by now after all the gunfire. She had to get them out quickly. Jessica took a breath, lifting a hand to smooth back her hair. Her fingers came away red and sticky. She stared. Belatedly, her head began to throb.

She moved through the conservatory and into the hallway, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Hair matted, blood trickling down her cheek. Scalp wound. She'd live.

And still the house was empty. "Alice? Chloe?"

The answer was faint but close by. "Jessica?"

Her heart jumped. She gripped the gun tightly, every muscle tense, and walked into the kitchen.

And there, huddled under the table, was Chloe.

"Oh my God." She rushed over at once, crouching down to help her. "Are you all right?"

Chloe had changed out of her school uniform into a T-shirt and jeans but otherwise she looked no different to when Jessica had seen her earlier. She wasn't injured, only scared. She must have heard the gunfire outside. But why was she alone?

The girl hugged her knees. "Jessica? What's happening?"

"I'm getting you out. Is Kilgrave here? Where's your mom?"

"She's in the basement. I don't know about Kilgrave."

The basement. A wave of nausea hit her and she had to stop herself from heaving. But she'd get them out even if she had to drag them kicking and screaming. Even if they couldn't leave, she'd make them.

"Can you stand?"

Chloe nodded, her eyes big and fearful. Jessica held out her hand. Chloe took it. Warm flesh met warm flesh; the sting of electricity fused them together.

"I'm sorry," Chloe whispered.

And all the strength went out of her.


	22. asking for it

**xxii. asking for it**

Her ears were muffled. Her body was slack. Nothing weighed her down; she simply couldn't get up. A voice cut through the white noise, a commanding voice, and like a radio adjusting its frequency, she tuned in and the voice stopped being disembodied and became sharp and clear, somewhere above her left shoulder.

"Fat lot of good you were. What am I paying you for? Take the girl to her mother. Don't let either of them out. Shoot them if they try."

She opened her eyes as footsteps moved past her. Small and light: Chloe. And then Hank following, carrying the gun she'd stolen from him in his left hand, the other injured hand cradled to his chest. Something else, something bizarre: the table that Chloe had been hiding under had moved. It was leaning against the fridge, upside down, as if someone had thrown it. One of the chairs had been knocked over too. She'd missed a scuffle.

"Jessica? Are you awake? Get up."

Fear flooded into her. Kilgrave crouched down before her just as she had crouched in front of Chloe, but this time there was nowhere to hide. The three standing chairs looked silly arranged around nothing but an empty space, but she reached out for one of them, forcing her limbs to work, and with a horrible effort pulled herself into a sitting position.

Her voice was a rasp. "What did you do to me?"

"I didn't do anything. Chloe did. You just got the full brunt of her power. Here, let me help you up."

He held out his hand and she took it. Back on her feet, the pain in her temple was acute. Blood glistened red and sticky on her cheek. She wasn't faint, exactly, but something was different.

She spoke again, stronger: "What did you do?"

"I'll show you. Look at me."

She turned her gaze up to his. His eyes gleamed. Nervous, excited, curious. A flicker of a smile but he contained it, stepping back.

"Hit me."

What? He was standing there alone, defenceless, no weapon that she could see. Him and his twitchy ferret face. If anyone deserved a beating... She stood up, drew her hand back into a fist and threw a punch square at his jaw.

Kilgrave caught it.

Before she could process what was happening, the fact that he had hold of her arm, the fact that he'd stopped her, he twisted her arm and pulled her to him and she _couldn't escape_.

Her back was trapped against his chest. His breath tickled her ear. "See. You can't hurt me. I'm stronger than you."

It wasn't fear that consumed her. It was sheer, utter terror. She struggled and thrashed, her nerves screaming, her heart screaming, and Kilgrave swore as he struggled to hold her – he wasn't super human, he was a tall and skinny man who was unused to lifting a finger against anyone, and she might have lost her strength but she was going to fight anyway, hit him anywhere she could–

"Stop it! Calm down!"

She went still. And then she sagged in his arms, a blissful sense of relief pooling over her. Kilgrave had gone still too, holding her while her breathing slowed, the adrenaline that had been pumping through her fading away.

"Jessica?" She could hear the frown before she looked at him. "What are you doing?"

 _Wait_ , she thought. _Is he…?_

"Are you controlling me?"

She didn't panic over it. She was, after all, staying calm. Was she dreaming? Was this all a bad dream? He let her go, stepping away. Now Kilgrave was the one on edge, tense, looking at her like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"No," he muttered. "Surely not… Could it…?"

She regarded him complacently.

"Is this real?" he asked at last. "You'll do whatever I say."

"I'll do whatever you say."

He sucked in a breath. He was so transparent, she thought, the emotions playing across his face. Hope. Eagerness. Want. But also suspicion. Mistrust. He wasn't sure whether to believe her.

He pointed. "Then bash your head against that wall."

She didn't say anything. She simply turned around, walked over, and did exactly as he said. Her skull met the wall with a dull thud and as pain shot through her temple and her ears rang, she remembered doing the same thing to that guard outside, slamming his head into the ground until he didn't move.

"Stop!"

She froze. Her hands were splayed against the wall, bracing herself to do it again, but Kilgrave came up behind her instead.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't expecting you to actually… I thought she'd take away your strength, but this… This is even better than I thought. Come here."

He embraced her, cradling her head against his shoulder, stroking her hair. Her head was splitting so hard it hurt to think, but the pieces were slowly coming together.

This wasn't a dream. There was no point in fighting him. There never had been. He was always one step ahead, not because he was smarter or a better planner, he was neither of those, but because she had failed to get her shit together. He'd set a trap and she'd fallen right into it, and now she was under his control.

Stupid. She was so, so stupid.

"Come on," said Kilgrave. "Let's get you fixed up."

He took her hand. Outside, sirens wailed. The police had arrived.

* * *

Of course, it didn't matter. Kilgrave sent away the police as easily as he dealt with anyone. He gave them a cover story about a break-in that had turned violent after his security guards intercepted the intruder. Two of them were being carried into an ambulance on stretchers: the one who had been shot and the one whose head she had smashed into the porch.

"Are they alive?" she asked.

She couldn't tell. If they were being rushed to the emergency room, that meant there was a chance, right?

"Let's find out," said Kilgrave.

He spoke to the remaining guard outside who was injured but conscious, instructing him to take care of things here. Then he went over to the ambulance and made them offer a ride.

"How are you feeling?" Kilgrave asked when the vehicle jolted over a bump in the road, Jessica wincing. "Your head, I mean."

"It hurts," she said shortly.

She had a concussion. Not as serious as the two men on stretchers who were near death, but Kilgrave deemed it necessary to take her to hospital anyway. The same calm, floaty feeling stayed with her after they arrived and she was treated, the faces of doctors and nurses blurring before her, blood washed off her face, hands, clothes, and stitches on the gash in her temple. She should have been terrified. Instead she was numb. Maybe it was the concussion. Maybe it was the drugs they gave her for the pain.

The only constant was Kilgrave. He stayed with her, regardless of whether he was supposed to, she suspected, and he held her hand at every opportunity. The staff thought he was her husband.

"Did they make it?" she asked when she was discharged at last, Kilgrave magically waving away any hint of a medical bill.

"My security team? Good of you to care. It's touch and go for the man who was shot; he lost a lot of blood. The other one's in a coma, so who knows how that'll turn out. I'll check on them in the morning."

She nodded. She'd been sure that the man who had been shot was dead, so that was something, she supposed.

"What time is it?"

"Almost midnight. What a night, eh?"

He escorted her out of the hospital and compelled some random stranger to give them a lift, as per usual. Jessica sat in the back of the car and stared at her hands. Her head had cleared. She'd sleepwalked through the treatment, but there was one thing her thoughts kept circling back to again and again.

Chloe.

Chloe had done this.

This was the thing that Alice wouldn't tell her, the plan that Chloe had hinted at but couldn't explain. Chloe didn't knock people out, she removed their powers. That was her gift. That was why it wouldn't work on the guards; it only worked on gifted people, like her, like Kilgrave. She must have done it to him once, that first time back in England when Jessica had escaped. And now she had taken away Jessica's strength and, it seemed, her ability to resist Kilgrave's influence.

But the effect couldn't be permanent, or else she wouldn't be in this situation. Kilgrave had gotten his mind control back. Which meant that if he wanted to keep her like this, then he had to keep Chloe alive.

She looked at Kilgrave. "How long does it last?"

"How long does what last?"

"Losing my powers."

"That depends on you. You betrayed me, Jessica. You can have your powers back when I can trust you with them and not before."

"So never."

He clicked his tongue. "Never say never. I know we have a way to go. But give it time. I'll win you over."

He was delusional, she thought. He was absolutely delusional if he thought that she would ever trust him again, let alone want to be with him.

"You didn't tell me about Chloe," she said. "You lied about what she can do."

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat. "Didn't want you getting any ideas."

Of course not. Because Chloe had the ability to neuter him too. That was why he'd forbidden it.

"So now what? Are you going to force me to be with you? You would, wouldn't you, you sick son-of-a–"

"Stop that," he said sharply, and she shut up. "No more of this ingratitude. We will be together but first there's one more loose end we need to tie up. Where's Trish?"

 _No_ , she thought.

She looked away, her stomach plummeting. "I don't know."

"Jessica. Tell me the truth."

It was funny. This was the first command of his that she really, really didn't want to obey, but there she was, telling him everything. She wanted to tell him everything. About Trish's mom, the car ride, the instructions she'd given. She'd done her best to put Trish out of Kilgrave's reach.

But she hadn't put them out of her reach.

"Well, then," said Kilgrave. "You'd better call. Find out where they are."

In her mind there was a homunculus. A tiny version of herself, locked out, screaming into the void. It fought so hard. _Don't listen to him! Just this one thing, don't do it, don't do it, don't hurt Trish–_

She made the call.

* * *

He took her to a hotel.

They'd deal with Trish in the morning, he said. She'd told them to sit tight and wait. He held her hand as they ascended the elevator and walked to their room. Her stomach tied itself in knots. He hadn't told her not to hate him, not yet. She held on to that hatred, clutched it tight within her while Kilgrave closed the blinds and took off his jacket, draping it over a chair.

"For God's sake," he said. "Smile."

She smiled.

He approached her, taking her hands. "This is real, isn't it? Obeying my commands? I've been waiting for you to drop the act, but here you are. Doing everything I tell you."

She said nothing. She was a blank space for him to fill in.

"Oh, Jessica, don't you see?" His expression became painfully earnest. "This is our chance. We can make everything right. I promised that I would make you happy. That I'd take care of you, look out for you. I love you more than anyone. And it breaks my heart."

His voice cracked. There was real emotion in his eyes.

"It breaks my heart to think of everything you've done to me," he went on. "But we're free of that now. All the pain, all the suffering. You'll never suffer again, never, not while you're with me. You can be happy. I can do that for you. I will do that for you. Wouldn't you like that?"

Tears filled her eyes. Her smile was carved on, skull-like. But he'd asked a question and he hadn't compelled an answer. She had to try.

"You can make me do whatever you want," she said, "but it won't be real. I'll be faking everything. What we had before, that was real. I loved you. You didn't force me. It was messed up and you were messed up but I felt something for you and you're taking that away."

"You betrayed me," he said.

He looked hurt, but this was real, this was a genuine conversation. He hadn't stopped it yet.

She shook her head. "Because everything we had was built on lies. You lied to me. You were so desperate to keep me, you'd say anything–"

"I'd do anything," he interrupted, "because I love you."

"Do you want me to love you back? I mean really love you back, not because you used your powers."

"Yes."

"Then don't control me. Don't make me do this."

She trembled. This was the last shred of hope she had, that somewhere along the way Kilgrave had grown to understand the difference between a consensual relationship and a mind-controlled slave. That he wanted something different from her, something he couldn't get from anyone else.

He stroked her hair. "I'm not making you do anything. I think somewhere deep down you know that. You do love me. You know you do."

Oh.

Oh, there it was. Blossoming in her heart. That stupid, giddy feeling, that _soaring_. She loved him. How could she have missed it? It had been there all along, that tug she felt in his presence, the attraction she buried under the pile of terrible things he had done, but he pulled it out of her with ease and she knew it, her heart bled with it. What was this jagged pain, this ache, this _want_ , if not love? She laughed, and the tears pricking her eyes were tears of joy.

"God, you're right. You're right. I love you."

His smile made her feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

* * *

She'd never wanted him so badly.

This was it, she thought. The end. He'd found a way to truly control her and after months of being on the outside, of watching other people being slave to his commands, finally she knew what it was like not only to follow his orders but to become who he wanted her to be.

It was all-consuming.

His desire was indistinguishable from hers; it became hers. Anything he wanted, she wanted too. Why hadn't she cared more when he did this to other people? Why hadn't she done more to stop him? Some part of her had thought them weak for being vulnerable, had dismissed them like he did.

Well, now she was just like everyone else.

That tiny, distant part of herself was still there, screaming in horror, watching through her own eyes as he took her to bed, as her body and her mind became slave to his whims. But it wasn't strong enough to resist.

"I love you," she told him. She repeated it again and again, every time he told her to. "I love you. I love you."

He was the star that lit up her world. He settled on her. _So this is what bliss feels like._

"I love you too," he whispered.

His sweat mingled with hers. They'd done it before but not like this, not so completely in tune. Submission wasn't enough; he wanted her heart and soul too. Love was the truest form of power he could hope to possess, and when she wouldn't give it, he took it. He took everything.

 _I wanted this._

She wanted him. She cried out for it, every touch of his skin, every stroke. She was free of her own desires, fears and worries; they didn't exist. It was wonderful. No responsibilities. No decisions to make. It could have been beautifully simple, if not for the voice in her head.

 _I deserve this. I had it coming._

* * *

For the first time in months, she had slept soundly. Light filtered through the blinds and she shifted, stretching luxuriously, fine cotton sheets grazing over her skin. Kilgrave was asleep next to her and as she set her eyes on him, a wave of giddiness swept over her. She loved him. He'd trapped her with it, a tender, bruising love, like the painful pleasure of his hands on her flesh.

In the void she screamed.

She snuggled up to him. He was controlling her, she knew that, but it was a curious fact that sat at the back of her mind, inert.

She booped his nose. "Hey."

He stirred, yawning. "Hey."

"Good morning."

She traced a finger over his cheek. Stubble darkened his jaw. She could see every hair. She wanted to study every inch of him, memorise him.

"Good morning," he said.

"You were right," she said.

"Right about what?"

"About making me happy. Being with you…"

"It's all you want."

"It's all I want."

Everything else faded; Kilgrave was the only colour. She loved him and nothing else mattered and it was that simple. He wanted to fuck her in the shower, so they did. He wanted to go swimming before breakfast, so they did, and they had the pool all to themselves. They had breakfast and then she went down on him in public, in the restaurant, because he wanted to and therefore she wanted to and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

It was so easy.

No one had told her about this part. They'd never said anything about how freeing it was, how wonderful to not have a care in the world other than pleasing Kilgrave. The sores on her body, the cut on her face; she barely noticed them. She would have spent hours worrying about how to save so many people by now, but today they were shadows, strangers hidden away at the back of her mind, forgotten.

"Now then," he said when they'd finished breakfast and she was sitting on his lap in a large wicker chair. "I need you to fetch Patsy."

She nodded. "Are you coming?"

"No. I'm going to check on my security."

He meant the two men in the hospital and perhaps Alice and Chloe too, still locked in that basement with Hank watching over them. Her insides turned cold. "But I want to stay with you."

That was all she wanted. Wasn't that what he had said? She couldn't bear to be without him–

"You want to do as I say."

Right. Of course she did.

* * *

His instructions for fetching Trish were clear. She mustn't reveal that she was being controlled. Trish had tricked her before under Kilgrave's command. Now she was going to do the same.

Outside, the smoke and blaring horns of central Manhattan greeted her. The city was the same, unaware that she was operating with invisible strings. She had Trish's phone still, and she used it to call Dorothy.

"Your house?" Jessica said disbelievingly, crossing the street towards the nearest subway. "I told you to take her somewhere safe."

"And where could be safer?" Dorothy over the phone was no less unapologetic than Dorothy in person. "Besides, if you thought we ran away, it's the last place you'd look."

There was some logic to that. Kind of. She sighed. "I'll be there soon."

After all her dire warnings, Dorothy had chosen to take her daughter home. Maybe she hadn't taken Jessica as seriously as she had thought. Maybe she really did think this was the safest place to be. It didn't matter. It wouldn't have made a difference.

At Dorothy's house she found Trish on the couch looking a little dazed, but relieved to see her.

"She woke up twenty minutes ago," Dorothy said. "Those pills really knocked her out."

"What happened?" Trish asked. "Did you find him?"

She shook her head. "I went back to his house but he'd bailed. I can contact him, use myself as bait to draw him out, but first I want to make sure you're safe."

"She is safe," said Dorothy, who had placed herself next to her daughter. "She doesn't have a home to go back to. I'm willing to let her stay here until this whole thing blows over."

Trish gave her a pleading look and Jessica grimaced. This was going to be easy. Trish was desperate to get out and she believed that Jessica was immune. She wouldn't suspect a thing.

"No," said Jessica. "I told you to hide, goddammit, do you think this is hiding? He already broke in here once; he knows where you live. Trish and I are getting out of here."

Trish stood up and Dorothy grabbed her arm, eyes flashing. "And what about me? Should I be worried? Tell me again why I shouldn't go to the police."

"Don't," Jessica warned her.

Normally this was where she would intervene. But this time she didn't have her powers and the last thing she wanted was for Dorothy to find that out. Fortunately, Dorothy backed off, folding her arms.

"The police are looking for me," said Trish. "It was my apartment that exploded; I've been reported missing. And there are reports that several police officers perished at the scene…" She shook her head. "All those people died because Kilgrave was after us. When is it gonna end?"

"Soon," she promised. "Look, sit down for a second…"

She had an idea. She made the two of them sit together again and snapped a picture on Trish's phone. Trish could tweet it and announce to the world that she was alive. She'd spent the night at her mother's and only just heard the news about the explosion, what a shock, thoughts and prayers with the families of the deceased, etc. Happy to talk to the police and make other necessary arrangements.

"You've had a lot of messages," Jessica added, scrolling through. She'd ignored Trish's text messages since taking her phone but there were a lot, mostly from her work colleagues, all variants of shock and worry after hearing the news.

Trish brushed her hair back, sighing. "I'll deal with it."

She looked tired, Jessica thought. In one night she'd been forced to help set a trap that had blown up her apartment and killed multiple people. She was putting a brave face on it. Good. Again, it made it easier for Jessica to do what Kilgrave wanted.

She turned to Dorothy. "If anyone calls, tell them that Trish is out dealing with her insurance company or whatever and you'll take a message. We'll go to the cops only if we're sure it's safe."

Dorothy huffed. "And what if he comes here? Since you're about to broadcast to the world that Patsy is staying with me."

"Kilgrave isn't dumb. He knows that we wouldn't put out a public statement revealing Trish's location until we'd moved her somewhere else. He won't come looking."

"If you're wrong about that, I will hold you personally responsible."

That was worry in Dorothy's eyes. More for herself than for her daughter, she guessed. But she was letting them go.

"Come on," said Jessica, handing Trish back her phone.

They headed out, Dorothy calling after them: "You owe me bigtime for this. And I want my handbag!"

* * *

Trish groaned once they were in the cab. "Why did you put me with her?"

"Sorry," she said. "I couldn't think of anyone else."

"Do you think we could go to the police? Does he still have Clemons acting as a mole?"

"I was hoping you could tell me that. You helped him. Did he tell you anything else about his plan?"

She only knew what Kilgrave had told her, which had been a big fat lie. The sting operation was supposed to take out all the police officers who had anything to do with Kilgrave's case. Meanwhile back at the station Clemons would destroy all the evidence before killing himself. She had to assume that had happened, and that if there was anything lingering Kilgrave would take care of it.

"Not really." Trish shrugged. "The body double was supposed to close the case. If the police think he's dead, they'll stop looking for him."

"Unless we tell them."

"Right." Trish looked at her, the light returning to her eyes. "We're the only ones who know what really happened."

She shook her head, looking away. "We told the cops before and now they're dead. I'm not going back until I catch Kilgrave myself. I have to make sure he can't hurt anyone else."

Trish nodded, and her stomach flipped. It was so easy to lie. She wondered if Trish had found it this easy when she'd done it to her. She'd seemed to enjoy it, catching Jessica out. Or Kilgrave had wanted her to enjoy it.

"So where are we going?" Trish asked.

* * *

She and Trish got to the café where Kilgrave was due to meet them first. They ate brunch while Trish went through her phone and catalogued all her action points to get her life back together.

"Sorry," she said after about five straight minutes of Jessica not saying anything. "There's a lot to do when your apartment burns down. Thank God I've still got my phone. I've lost everything else."

Everything she owned, her clothes, laptop, credit card. The life of Trish Walker, gone up in flames along with the apartment. And all of Jessica's things too, of course, what little she had. This was the second time she'd have to start from nothing.

"He's good at that," she said, picking at her macaroni. "Destroying everything."

Trish paused. "I know what he cost you too. I don't mean money or possessions, or not only that, but… everything else."

 _He raped me._

The thought flickered, and then was gone. She blinked. No, she loved him. She wanted to be with him. She couldn't tell Trish that they were together anyway, she had to keep up the ruse until Kilgrave arrived.

"We can talk about it later, okay?" she said. "I can't think about that right now."

"Well, at least he's not controlling me anymore," Trish said, leaning back in her seat to type another message. "I could do without that again. Reminded me of my mother forcing me to…" She shook her head. "Sorry."

Forcing her to stick her head down the toilet and throw up her meal. Or to work with sleazy directors. Or any one of a hundred humiliations that Dorothy had put her daughter through to mould her into the perfect child star. Obviously, those memories were close to the surface right now. Jessica said nothing. No point in rehashing old trauma.

Minutes passed. Jessica had finished her macaroni and cheese. She glanced at the time on Trish's phone screen. He was supposed to be here. He was definitely going to–

"Ladies! There you are. Trish, you're delighted to see me."

Her heart leapt at the sight of him. Trish had been occupied by her phone; she didn't see Kilgrave approaching the table until it was too late. She looked up, flashing Kilgrave a smile.

"Kilgrave! I'm so happy to see you."

Jessica smiled too, Kilgrave kissing the top of her head before sliding into the seat next to her. "Room for one more? I'm starving."

* * *

He was buoyant to start, joyful even. Joking about his two favourite ladies. Then about twenty minutes in, two things happened that changed the mood. First, he got a text message that he stared at for several seconds before swearing loudly and shoving the phone back into his pocket in high temper. He wouldn't say what it was. Then almost immediately after an excited middle-aged man recognised Trish and came over to talk to her, which set off Kilgrave at once. He told the man to forget that he'd seen them and go stick his hand into a blender, and then he stood up.

"Patsy, you're too popular. We'd better find somewhere else."

His orders were brusque. He whisked them away to a random apartment, compelling the owner to let them in, and Jessica wondered how much of today had been planned. Was there a reason he wasn't taking them back to the house with Alice and Chloe? The apartment wasn't his usual level of fancy, though it was fine enough by her standards. Cosy, lived-in, with mismatched cushions and blankets draped over the couch and a pile of what looked like exam papers on the coffee table next to a half-full cup of mocha. The owner had been sent away to her room.

"Ladies, sit."

Kilgrave gestured over to the couch. They obeyed, and Jessica was starting to get nervous, clasping her hands in her lap. Kilgrave didn't sit; he paced, restlessly, and then he stopped and pointed at Trish.

"This is your fault. All of it."

Trish blinked. "What? What did I do?"

"You're a bad influence," he said. "You've done everything you can to turn my life to shit. You took Jessica away from me. You plotted and plotted and plotted and you turned the police on me and God knows who else, the FBI or something, I don't know. You're a deceitful, self-righteous, sanctimonious bimbo without a single original thought in your head, and I should know, I've heard enough of you. What does Jessica see in you? Really? Jessica, enlighten me. I don't understand."

Oh, Christ. He was on edge; her nerves were jangling just looking at him, and Jessica took a breath, shaking her head in disbelief. "She's my friend."

What had been in that message? What had gotten him so worked up?

"You chose her over me." He stared at her. "Twice now. Once I could forgive, but twice… Why did you do it, Jessica? Why?"

"Because I love her."

She swallowed as she said it, not looking at Trish. She'd never said that before. It wasn't the kind of thing she did.

"Kilgrave, please." That was Trish, trying to protect her. Always trying to intervene. "We're family; we've known each other since we were fourteen years old. I'm not a threat to you."

"Shut up," said Kilgrave sharply. "You have caused me enough problems. Get up, both of you. Patsy, stay where you are. Jessica, kick her to death."

Oh, God.

Her actions happened in slow motion. She and Trish stood up, facing each other. There wasn't a lot of space between the couch and the TV and the coffee table; obeying his command was going to be awkward. Her limbs moved. Foot, shifting back. Trish stared at her, not moving, tears glazing her eyes.

 _No. No. Don't do it._

She kicked Trish in the shin. Trish cried out, doubling over. She kicked again, the other shin.

 _No. Stop it, you fucking monster, stop it!_

"Jess!" Trish had found her voice. She kicked again and again and again, and Trish fell, gasping for breath. "Jess, he can't control you! Stop it! Please stop it!"

She'd forgotten that. Trish didn't know that he could control her. She must have been so bewildered when Kilgrave had turned up, wondering why Jessica had betrayed her… but none of that had shown on her face. He'd taken control too quickly.

"You'll notice that Jessica's usual strength is somewhat lacking today," said Kilgrave, watching the proceedings with an air of disinterest. "So this might take a while."

 _Stop it! Stop it!_

Her foot caught Trish's jaw and blood oozed from her lip. She kicked Trish's ribcage, again and again, putting all of her puny human force into it while Trish begged for mercy. She couldn't stop. God, she couldn't stop. She was going to keep doing this until Trish was dead and no amount of penance would wash the stain from her soul.

Trish curled up in a ball, hands covering her head. The skull. That would be quickest. She leaned down and moved the coffee table out of the way to give her more space. She kicked again. Trish's hands were bloody. Her foot was hurting too, but she ignored it, she had to keep going.

She kicked Trish's head.

Kilgrave wasn't even watching; he was taking a phone call.

 _No! Stop it! Please!_

The skull would crack like an egg. Like Carl's skull. Like the bullet that had smashed through Simon's brain when he'd killed himself. Like the guard's head cracking against the porch, bloody and broken.

She should have killed herself months ago, before any of this had happened. All of this had happened because she was fucking _weak_. She'd let it happen. She'd wanted it.

"Stop!"

She froze.

Kilgrave stared at her and swallowed. She stared back. She didn't understand. "What?"

He tucked his phone away, face grim. "We have a problem."


	23. the shit we do for love

**xxiii. the shit we do for love**

"What?"

She was strung out, her emotions all over the place. She needed something to focus on, a problem to solve.

"Stay here," said Kilgrave. "Fix up Patsy and wait for my call."

He pulled on his jacket. She didn't understand. "What happened?"

Their eyes met, but he didn't answer. He walked out, leaving her with nothing but a pit in her stomach. On the floor, Trish whimpered.

 _Fix up Patsy and wait for my call._

Well, orders were orders. First she ransacked the bathroom, digging out a first aid kit. She poured a glass of water in the kitchen and found an ice pack in the freezer. She avoided the bedroom, partly because she didn't expect to find anything useful, and partly because Kilgrave had left the unfortunate resident of this apartment there and she didn't feel up to having a conversation.

Instead she returned to the lounge with her supplies and set to work. Trish sat up against the couch and held the ice pack to her head while Jessica cleaned her bloody hands and lip, plastered Band-Aids anywhere she found a cut, and daubed antiseptic cream on her bruises.

"Thanks," Trish mumbled. "For taking care of me."

"You know I'm only doing it because Kilgrave told me to, right?"

"Yeah. But that's preferable to you beating me up."

She couldn't argue with that. "Can you stand?"

By the time Kilgrave called, Trish was able to stand and move around, though she kept wincing and holding her ribs. Jessica had done the best she could. Now he wanted the two of them to go somewhere else, a place called Delaney Hall.

"What are we doing there?" she asked.

"I'll tell you when you get there. Hurry."

* * *

She stole money from the apartment to get them there as fast as he wanted, hoping that people wouldn't notice Trish's condition. They got a couple of glances on the way in, but New York's inhabitants were busy. They didn't have time for one woman who looked like she'd been in a traffic accident, not when she already had someone to look after her.

Besides, the place was empty. Delaney Hall was a night club, an old building that had been converted into a bar. The stage had been set up with a drum kit, keyboard and microphone, purple lights flashing in anticipation of the crowd to come. Kilgrave met them in the foyer. He was holding Alice's hand.

"What is this place?" Jessica asked. "Why don't we go back to the house?"

"Can't," he said. "They found us – no, don't ask questions. Follow me."

She was placed as if on a chessboard. Onstage, in full view of the entire hall – and in full view of Kilgrave who watched them from the upper floor. Trish and Alice took their places on the floor, Trish on the left side, Alice on the right, each of them carrying a knife. Jessica was unarmed. He had instructed her to wait and do nothing.

So she waited, and she did nothing. She couldn't even glance at her phone to check the time.

Minutes passed. She was sweating and dehydrated and _tired_. She'd never before appreciated the torture of standing still, all the times he had commanded people to stand there and wait, switching them off until he needed them. But he hadn't switched off her brain. Her thoughts roiled around, messy, useless.

She looked up at Kilgrave. His face was impassive. From this distance she couldn't tell if he was consumed by nervous energy or if he had calmed down. Why the charade? Why play this game? They were waiting for something. The missing piece.

She could guess at what that was. The one thing he needed to keep her under control.

It arrived in the form of footsteps running up the stairwell, a slight figure emerging into the hall and staring around, overwhelmed. Jessica swallowed.

"Chloe!" Kilgrave called down to her. "Stop right there."

But Chloe had spotted her mother. "Mum!"

She ran and Alice held up a hand, crying out. "No! Don't come near me!"

Kilgrave leaned down. "Get any closer and she'll slit her throat."

The glint of a blade flashed near Alice's neck and Chloe stopped short, gasping for breath. Jessica could only see her back, the way her shoulders shuddered, the way she craned her head as she backed away.

"Where's Hank?" Kilgrave asked.

"Outside," Chloe said. Her voice quavered, but held a surprising note of defiance. "Let my mum go!"

And her stance shifted, feet set apart, shoulders squared. She was holding a – Jessica's eyes widened – she was holding a gun, pointing it up at Kilgrave. A teenage girl standing in the middle of the floor surrounded by his mind-controlled minions, one of whom was her own mother, and she was threatening Kilgrave.

Jessica waited, and did nothing.

Kilgrave's hands gripped the railing. "Put that down!"

"Let her go!"

Kilgrave stared at her. "If you shoot, your mother will kill herself. Put it down. I'm going to count to three. One…"

Chloe made a noise like a wounded animal. Her hands shook. Both Alice and Trish held the blades flush to their throats; the slightest movement would draw blood. Jessica's feet were rooted to the stage. She couldn't do anything.

"Two…"

The pieces clicked. Jessica understood. She knew why the guards escorting Chloe hadn't made it in with her, how Chloe had gotten hold of a gun, the reason that Kilgrave was using the girl's mother to threaten her when direct orders didn't work…

Slowly, Chloe's arms lowered. She knelt down and placed the gun on the floor. Jessica let out a breath.

"Good," said Kilgrave softly. "Kick it away."

Chloe did so, viciously. The gun flew spinning across the floor, disappearing into the shadows by the bar.

"Good girl," he said. "That's more like it. Now say you're sorry."

Silence. Defiant, stubborn silence.

"Say you're sorry," Kilgrave repeated, impatient as always.

"No!"

"Chloe," Kilgrave warned her. "Haven't I always told you that children should obey their fathers? Do I have to teach you that lesson again?"

"You're not my dad," said Chloe. "You'll never be my dad!"

He sighed, sounding disappointed. "Alice, cut off a finger."

"No!"

Jessica reflexively swallowed the word too, her heart leaping into her mouth. It happened so fast. Alice sliced off her little finger with barely a moment's hesitation, and then she clutched the bleeding stump, a whimper catching in her throat. On the other side of the hall, Trish's eyes met Jessica's, and she knew that if the clock ran out and her powers returned it would be Trish receiving this punishment. Alice was here to control Chloe. Trish was here to control her.

"Chloe, look at me." The girl did, and so did Jessica. "You don't want to hurt your mother, do you? You don't want to see her suffer."

"No," Chloe whispered.

"You have an extraordinary gift," Kilgrave continued, warming to his theme. He began walking around towards the staircase, the four of them below watching his approach. "All I ask is that you use it properly. I'll forgive you for running away. I won't punish you, or your mother, if you prove yourself now. Go to Jessica. Take her powers, like you did before."

Chloe stared up at him. "You won't punish us?"

"I won't punish you," he promised. "You have my word."

He paused at the top of the staircase. Keeping his distance, she thought. If Chloe got near him, it was all over. Meanwhile Chloe turned around and for the first time she looked at Jessica, really looked at her, and her mouth trembled. Jessica wished she could give the girl some kind of sign, say something, anything. _Do it_ , she thought. _Save yourself, save your mom. Let him have me. It's what I want too._

Chloe walked up to the stage.

Jessica could feel the eyes on her. All of them: Alice, Trish, Chloe, and Kilgrave most of all, watching intently. Her powers hadn't returned. Chloe climbed up the steps, approaching her, and Jessica's skin prickled. The girl curled a hand around her arm.

Chloe looked up at her, and mouthed two words: "Help me."

Electricity lanced between them, springing up from the contact of their skin and running, jolting up her bones, her muscles, infusing her body. Her head cleared. The web of Kilgrave's control snapped.

And she knew what to do.

She collapsed, falling to her knees and then flat on the stage, going still. Chloe stood there, hand outstretched, and Kilgrave called out to her.

"Move away. Back to the middle of the floor."

Footsteps retreated. Another set of footsteps hurried over. Kilgrave knelt down beside her, cradled her head in his arms, lifting her up.

"Jessica? Wake up."

She cracked her eyes open, squinting up at him. Kilgrave smiled brilliantly and her heart lurched.

"Are you okay?"

"Tired," she mumbled.

"You're fine, come on, stand up." She got to her feet with his help. "There we are, with hours to spare. I promise next time won't be such an ordeal. See, this is perfect. Chloe gets your powers and you and I get to be together. You'll love me like you always should have done and she'll be the superhero that you never were."

She forced herself to smile. Meanwhile she was scanning the hall, assessing time, distance… Alice in the far corner, cradling her injured hand. Trish in the other, holding the knife loosely by her side. And Chloe in the middle, her feet rooted to the floor just as Jessica's had been. How long before he noticed?

Right now, all his attention was on her. His hands settled on her shoulders. "Kiss me."

She kissed him, slow and tender, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her fingers itched to grab him, throttle him good and quick. But not yet. Not yet. He let go and it was like coming up for air. She'd been drowning in her love for him.

Not anymore.

He took her hand, intertwining their fingers, and grabbed the mike, addressing his audience. "Alice, Patsy, come with me. Chloe, your mother won't get hurt as long as you behave. Do you understand?"

Chloe nodded. The hairs on the back of Jessica's neck stood on end. She watched Alice and Trish come towards them, passing Chloe. Kilgrave led her down from the stage. They were twenty feet away.

"I'll come with you," said Chloe. "I'll behave."

Ten feet away.

"Good," said Kilgrave. "Then foll–"

Jessica wrenched her hand out of Kilgrave's and clamped it over his mouth. "Get him!" She flung him – launched him – as far as she could towards the middle of the hall, launched herself at Trish, grabbed the knife, wrested it off her, flung it away too, spun around–

Blood spattered in the air, Alice's blood–

She threw herself at Alice too, pulled away the knife and oh Christ that was a deep gash on her neck…

"Stop!"

It was a high, girlish scream. A child's scream. Alice froze and then her knees gave way, Jessica catching her. Blood leaked from her neck and Jessica pressed her hand to the wound, trying to contain it. She looked up and there was Trish a few feet away, on her hands and knees reaching for the knife that Jessica had thrown away, frozen still too.

Above them, the disco lights flashed.

And in the middle of the hall…

Chloe on her knees next to the prone Kilgrave, her hand clenched around his wrist. She'd done it. She'd gotten him.

"Mum!" Chloe screamed, scrambling to her feet. "Mum!"

The girl ran to her mother and the blood seeped through Jessica's fingers, try as she might, there was so much of it…

She fumbled one-handed for her phone. "We need to call 911."

"Help her!" Chloe sobbed. "Help her, please!"

That was the cue for Trish to get up, unsteady as she was, and pull off her top before rushing over to press the fabric over the wound. Jessica could see every one of the bruises on her chest and back, all of them purple. She shoved her phone at Trish and looked away.

"Call 911."

Trish nodded. "She'll be fine, we'll get help."

Chloe was nearly hysterical, sobbing and hugging her mother. But out on the floor Kilgrave had begun to stir. Jessica stood up.

"Chloe, I need your help. Chloe!"

The girl looked up, choking back a sob. "What?"

"Kilgrave's waking up."

On the floor with Alice, Trish was speaking to the emergency services. Chloe got up too, moving beside Jessica to stare at Kilgrave. Her fists clenched.

"I'll make him kill himself."

Jesus Christ. She grabbed Chloe by the arm as she started forward. "Stop!"

"Let go!" Chloe tried to twist away. "He killed my dad!"

"I know, I know–"

"I can take your powers too! Don't try to stop me!"

Jessica became suddenly aware that her bare skin was touching Chloe's, and let go like she had been scalded. She held up her hands. "Hey, hey, calm down–"

"Don't tell me to calm down! My mum – she –"

"Your mom needs you," said Jessica desperately, sensing an opportunity. "You go and take care of her, I'll take of him."

"But…"

The girl was wavering. She glanced again at her mother who was white as a sheet in Trish's arms, and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Chloe, trust me. You don't want to become a murderer, not on his account. That piece of shit over there has used his powers all his life to kill people without a second thought. Don't be like him. I'll take care of it, I just need you to do one thing."

Chloe wiped her eyes. "What?"

"I need you to help me control him."

He was getting to his feet, lifting a hand to his head. As one, Jessica and Chloe strode towards him. Kilgrave took one look at them and bolted.

"Kilgrave, stop!" Chloe commanded, and he ground to a halt in front of the stairwell.

Jessica grabbed him by the hair and dragged him back to the middle of the floor. "Listen up!"

The look on his face was pure fear. She recognised that look. It was one she'd worn herself.

"Do everything Jessica tells you," Chloe instructed him.

"Chloe," Kilgrave breathed. "You're my daughter, I'm begging you–"

Jessica yanked his head back and he subsided, gasping for breath.

"She's in charge of everything you do now," said Chloe. "I hope she makes you rot."

With that, Chloe turned on her heel and ran back to her mother. They were a little group near the foot of the stage, Alice resting in Trish's lap while Trish staunched the wound, Chloe holding her mother's hand, burying her head into her shoulder, telling her mother to live, to hold on.

Maybe it would work. Jessica didn't think that mind control could stop people from dying, but if it gave Alice the strength to retain consciousness for a few minutes longer… Maybe that would make all the difference.

Anyway, they weren't her problem anymore. She had one problem and she'd finally found a solution.

She grabbed Kilgrave by the neck, lifting him up so that he coughed and choked, kicking ineffectually a foot off the ground.

He tried to speak. "Jess… Je…"

She gave him a mirthless smile. "Who's in control now, asshole?"

* * *

The hall was strangely quiet.

Alice, Trish and Chloe had departed as soon as the ambulance arrived. Chloe could use her powers to get her mother treated straight away. It was the best chance they had. Out on the stairwell, the two guards that Chloe had knocked out were gone too. They also needed a trip to the hospital.

Which left her with Kilgrave. He sat on one of the steps leading up to the stage with his arms folded in his lap, as quiet as she had ever seen him. He had a bruise on his cheek where she'd hit him, sending him spinning again across the floor, but the punishment didn't satisfy her. Was there any punishment that would?

She stood before him. "You usually have something to say."

He looked up. "Can I say something?"

"What?"

"Well, it's more of a question. You have me at your mercy. I'm completely helpless. What are you going to do with me?"

She looked away, shrugging. "There's that gun somewhere over there by the bar. I could make you shoot yourself, like you did to that man in the barn."

"Ah," he said. "Poetic justice."

"Maybe I'll cut out your tongue. You'll never control anyone again."

"You'd make me a cripple?"

"Or your dick," she went on, and he winced. "Put a stop to your lifetime of raping people."

He didn't say anything. He just looked wounded.

"How long do we have?" she asked. "Until your powers come back. Tell me the truth."

"I guessed around twenty four hours," he said, "based on when it happened to me."

Twenty four hours. A whole day where she could do what she liked with him. She could stoop down to his level. Get her revenge, torture him for hours, and still have time to hand him in to the police…

"Why did you do it?" she asked. "All this shit you did to me, all the people you hurt or killed… why?"

He gazed up at her. "Because I love you."

"No. No, that's bullshit. Tell me the truth."

"It's the truth. I love you."

It was like a bucket of cold water over her head. No. No. She paced around, shaking her head. No, he had no idea what love was. It was his delusion, an evil, twisted version of love that was indistinguishable from power and obsession…

"Do you think that'll make me spare you?" she asked. "Do you think I still have any feelings for you?"

"I don't know," he said. "You asked a question and I answered it. You're the one in control here."

She didn't feel like it. What was this power he had over her? Why did she feel it even now?

"I can't do this," she said, running her hands through her hair, trying to shake herself into clarity. "I can't be with you, I can't talk to you. Shut up, Kilgrave," she added when he opened his mouth to speak, and then: "What's your name? Your real name?"

He blinked. "Kevin Thompson."

"Kevin." She nearly laughed, but it was a bitter, angry laugh. "You were an ordinary kid, weren't you? You weren't special. Where are you from?"

"Manchester."

"And the story you told me about how you gained your powers, was that true?"

"I didn't tell you the full story," he said. "I don't like to talk about it."

"Good. Tell me."

She'd stopped pacing now, standing in front of him. She felt better. The boy he used to be, the human he once was, that was the man behind Kilgrave the monster. That was the man she could control.

"My parents did this to me," he said. "They were scientists and I was their experiment. They made me go through neurological exams, brain biopsies, spinal fluid extractions… One day they did something that gave me my power and like the cowards they are, they ran away. Abandoned me while I was still a child."

That… that was horrific. She swallowed, unsure how to react. Kilgrave looked down, hands clasped in his lap. He looked like a boy fidgeting at the back of the class. A disturbed, scared young boy… but that didn't excuse the man he'd become.

"And then you grew up into a raging psychopath," she said harshly.

"Did I?" He shrugged. "I didn't have anyone to tell me differently. I had to live the way I did, I had to use my powers to survive. You know how my mind control works. It doesn't switch off. It's never gone, it's…"

"It's gone now," she said. "How does it feel?"

He stood up and despite herself, she flinched. Kilgrave gave a small smile. "Right now, not so bad. You've stopped threatening me. Although you still haven't told me what you're going to do now that we're alone…"

He reached out and she snapped at him. "Don't touch me."

He recoiled, cradling his hand to his chest. "You've won, Jessica. Why are you so scared?"

He was right, she thought. She had all her strength back and he was a puny human.

"Do you know what you did to me?"

"Of course I do. I was there."

"No," she said. "No, you don't."

She moved past him, sitting down on the steps, and Kilgrave joined her. Somehow this felt okay.

"You don't know because you've never experienced it," she said. "You didn't know what it was like to be powerless, to have your mind controlled by someone else. I didn't know either until you did it to me. You violated everything."

He was close enough to touch her, but not touching her, as she had ordered. "Is this the part where I say sorry?"

"I don't know. Are you sorry?"

"Well, I don't regret it."

"You tortured me. You made me hurt Trish. I almost killed her."

"Trish has been an interfering busybody since day one of our relationship. She deserved it."

"Do you think so? You really think that?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. "God, you really are a psychopath. I don't know how I ever had feelings for you."

She didn't know how she could bear to have him near her, within touching distance, even without his powers. Was there anything in her life he hadn't ruined? Any part of her he hadn't spoiled?

"But you did," he said. "That gives me hope. Whatever mistakes I've made, whatever I've done to hurt you, you still felt something for me. That's all I wanted. Is that such a crime?"

"No." She stood up, backing away. "Wanting love isn't a crime, but everything you did to get it is. You asked what I was going to do with you. Here it is. I'm going to take you to the station and you're going to confess everything. You're going to admit what you did and you'll say that you forced me too, along with everyone else you ever mind controlled. You're going to let them take you into custody. You won't fight it. You are going to spend the rest of your life in jail and when you step into that cell, then you'll know what it's like to be truly powerless."

There it was, the fear she was looking for. "Jessica…"

"Get up," she said. "You're coming with me."

* * *

She called Trish first. They were in the taxi on the way to the station, Kilgrave silent beside her. Trish didn't answer. Chloe did.

"Where's Trish?"

"She's… she's with the doctor. They said something about internal bleeding…"

She closed her eyes. "Will she be okay?"

"I don't know. I'm waiting for Mum too, I keep asking for news, but…"

Life was horribly ironic sometimes. Even with Kilgrave's mind control, Chloe's situation was still helpless. There wasn't anything more she could do.

"Just hold on, okay," said Jessica. "I'm on my way."

As the taxi pulled up outside the hospital, she wrestled with what to do with Kilgrave. By his own count, they still had nearly a full day before he regained his powers and Chloe could remove them again at any time. But she didn't want to take him into the hospital to see Chloe. She didn't want her to face him again.

"Wait here," she told him, pointing to a seat in reception. "Don't move until I come back."

She left him there and hurried up to the ward where Chloe had told her they were keeping Alice and Trish. The two of them were in adjacent beds, no doubt Chloe's doing, and hooked up to various machines. They both had drips in their arms, but while Alice's eyes were closed, seemingly unconscious, Trish was awake.

Jessica rushed over to her. "Trish, oh my God…"

Trish smiled weakly. "Hey. They got to me just in time. Lucky I had to take Alice to the hospital, huh?"

Jessica held her hand. "This is my fault…"

"No, it isn't." Trish looked so pale, her blonde curls loose and limp. "Hey. Don't ever say that, okay? Don't blame yourself."

She glanced over at Alice. Chloe held her mother's hand, her eyes wet with tears. A large bandage covered half of Alice's neck. She hadn't managed to fully slit her throat; Jessica had caught her before that. But she'd still almost bled to death.

"And what about Alice?" she asked. "I stopped you first and Alice second. If Alice dies…"

"She won't die," said Trish. "The doctors say she's stable. You did what you had to. It was the only way to stop Kilgrave."

Chloe looked up at that, seeming to notice Jessica for the first time. "Is he gone?"

"Kilgrave?" Jessica shook her head. "He's in the hospital. I told him to wait."

Trish stared at her. "Are you crazy? You need to take care of him. Don't give him a chance to escape."

"Escape? He's not going to–" She shook her head, irritated. "I had to make sure you were okay."

"And I'm saying you need to make sure he's locked away. Otherwise this will all have been for nothing."

She was right. Chloe stared at her with a mixture of fear and anger, and she worried that the girl would take matters into her own hands. Jessica stood up.

"Okay. Just… don't die on me, okay?"

Trish smiled. "I won't."

"I told her not to," said Chloe. "I told Mum not to too."

That had to be good enough. She nodded and departed the ward, heading back to the elevator.

* * *

Back to Kilgrave. He should have been exactly where she'd put him, sitting alone on a plastic chair in the waiting area.

Instead she arrived in the middle of a fracas. Two men grappled with Kilgrave, attempting to drag him out of the building. One had a hand clamped over his mouth, which could be a coincidence, but they were dressed in black, military-looking, maybe special ops or something else, she recalled Kilgrave mentioning the FBI…

A third man seemed to be directing proceedings, another military type judging by the haircut but not in uniform, and Jessica marched right up to him.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Making an arrest," said the man. He was British, which immediately got her back up. "Look, back off, this has nothing to do with–"

"This has everything to do with me!" she snapped. "Do you know who he is?"

Kilgrave had stopped struggling and was staring at her, apparently waiting to be rescued. They had an audience too: various patients, visitors and staff with mouths agape.

The man was unfazed. "Kilgrave," he said. "Mind controller, cop killer and bit of an all-round dick from what I hear. You must be Jessica Jones."

He knew who she was. For once, she couldn't speak. So he was…

"Hunter," he said, holding out his hand. She didn't take it. "Glad to wrap up this case. We'll need to question you too if you don't mind, I figure you'll know something about the limits of this arsehole's power."

He'd told her about this, Jessica realised. The black van that had followed them for days. Kilgrave's tantrum earlier, moving them out of the house that he had set up… He knew he was being followed. Unless… Unless this was another trap. Was it possible that these men were also under Kilgrave's control, or that they were an additional security team he hadn't told her about?

There was one way to find out.

"I need to talk to him," said Jessica abruptly. "I need to know who you are."

"I represent an organisation that takes care of this sort of thing–"

He flashed a badge in her face, S.H.I.E.L.D or something like that, it meant fuck-all as far as she was concerned.

"No," she said. "No, he could have told you to say that. I need to ask him."

"So he can control us? Pull the other one, love."

Fair point, she thought. He didn't know that Kilgrave had lost his powers, so from his point of view she looked like one of Kilgrave's minions coming to rescue him. On the other hand, fuck this. She hadn't caught Kilgrave to let this asshole steal her glory. And she wasn't about to risk him escaping either.

So she punched him.

He went down like a sack of potatoes and Jessica went straight for the other two, grabbing them and knocking their heads together. Look, they were in a hospital. It was the perfect place to get blunt force trauma. She stepped back and looked at Kilgrave who was scrambling away from his captors, breathing hard. One of the nurses squealed.

"Okay," she said. "Tell the truth. Do you know these goons? Did you set this up?"

"No," he said. "No, I think they're for real."

Right. So she'd accidentally punched the good guys. Whoops.

"Fine, I believe you," said Jessica loudly as Hunter got to his feet, wincing. "Kilgrave doesn't have his powers right now so you don't have to worry about mind control for another twenty one hours, give or take. Oh, and his real name's Kevin Thompson. Look him up. What are you gonna do with him?"

Hunter rubbed at his jaw. "Put it this way. Where he's going, he won't be coming out."

Perfect. She cracked her knuckles. "Great, take him away."

"Yeah, about that." Hunter pointed at her. "I'm also arresting you."


	24. i wanted to live

**xxiv. i wanted to live**

"Don't," said Kilgrave. "Don't arrest her. It was me, it was my fault. Jessica's innocent."

The two guards got to their feet, but Kilgrave didn't try to run. What was he doing? Not once had Jessica ever heard him admit that something like this was his fault. Unless he was obeying her order from earlier. To confess everything.

"Well," said Hunter. "Good news is I don't feel the slightest inclination to do as you say, so I guess you did lose your powers. Come with us. You too, Jones."

She didn't move. "On what charge?"

"Er, assault?" He indicated the bruise on his jaw. "And obstructing an arrest. Look, we just want to ask a few questions. If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear."

 _If you're innocent._

Ha. She shook her head, but thought better of protesting. She let one of the guards handcuff her and lead her out of the hospital, the other guard doing the same with Kilgrave. They were bundled into the black van she'd seen at a distance before and Kilgrave said nothing but he didn't take his eyes off her for a moment.

She didn't know what he was thinking. All she knew was that he had been caught. It was over for him.

What about her?

Should she confess?

They were taken to the station. The police escorted Kilgrave through first, his head bowed, and Jessica followed after him, feeling more and more jittery with every second.

"You stop here," said one of the officers, indicating for Kilgrave to enter an interview room.

She realised that they were about to be separated at the same time he did, Kilgrave turning and grabbing her hand.

"Jessica." His eyes met hers. "I'll wait for you."

And then his hand slipped away and the other officers marched her on, and anxiety churned her stomach. It would be fine, she told herself. They knew how dangerous he was and she wouldn't leave until she was sure that he was safely in custody.

They made her wait in a room similar to the one she had interviewed in before, bare except for the table and a couple of plastic chairs, a camera in the corner of the ceiling no doubt recording her every move. She was handcuffed to the table. Not that it would stop her if she really wanted to get out…

But that was the question.

The same question that had haunted her for months, the guilt and shame that ate at her, the need to lose herself in alcohol or sex or even going back to Kilgrave because anything was better than facing what she had become.

She stared at her hands on the table and wrestled with that question.

 _Do I deserve to live?_

 _"It's not a question of deserve. It's a question of want. What do you want?"_

She closed her eyes. How had he become the voice of her conscience?

 _It doesn't matter what I want. It's about making it right._

 _"No, it's about you punishing yourself. That's what you're contemplating, isn't it? You hate yourself so much, you think you deserve to suffer."_

 _I have suffered. I've suffered because of you._

 _"Yes. Because you deserve it. You deserve me."_

 _No._

 _"Yes. We're the same. You're as bad as I am, don't deny it. You want to go down with me."_

 _Stop it._

 _"Go on, confess. Do it. We'll go to hell together."_

 _No! Stop it!_

Her eyes snapped open and she stifled a cry, because she was no longer sitting at the table. She was huddled in a corner, hands wrapped around her knees, the handcuffs broken on the floor, the table upside down against the opposite wall where it had been knocked over.

Like the kitchen table that had been knocked against the fridge, the one that Chloe had hidden under the night before. Chloe must have done that with her stolen powers. She'd lashed out.

The door opened and a police officer burst in. "What's going on here?"

Jessica blinked, forcing herself back to the present. "Don't come near me." Her voice was hoarse. "I'm dangerous. I'm a monster."

"Okay, okay, calm down." A different voice, a man's, soft and assured. "Let me handle this."

"Are you sure, sir?"

"I've dealt with people like her before."

He wasn't a cop. She stayed where she was, afraid to move, and watched the man dismiss the police officer before pushing the table upright, rearranging the furniture for interview. He gestured at her empty chair.

"Take a seat."

She cleared her throat. "I don't take orders from men in suits."

"It wasn't an order, it was a suggestion. Please."

He took the seat opposite and she stared at him for a moment before complying, scraping the chair back so that she could fold her arms and regard him from a distance.

"Is Clemons here?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "Detective Clemons committed suicide yesterday. In fact…" He laid a tablet on the table top, scrolling through a report. "He was one of nine officers who lost their lives, eight of them at the explosion at Trish Walker's apartment, along with three civilians. Clemons appears to have destroyed several pieces of critical evidence regarding the Kilgrave case. The police are still investigating the extent of the damage. But I think you know something about that."

Yes, she did. Another death on her conscience. How many had she racked up now? She closed her eyes, clenching her fists to stop them from shaking.

Did she deserve to live?

Did she want to live?

The man waited, patient.

"Kilgrave knows," she said. "Ask him. You've got less than a day before he gets you."

"We're aware. How did that happen?"

She went quiet. "I don't know if I can trust you."

"You met my colleague, Hunter. He works for me. I can assure you, Ms Jones, we know what we're doing."

Which wasn't the same as him being trustworthy. She looked away.

 _If I give up now, he's won._

That single thought crystallized. It didn't come from Kilgrave. It was hers.

"It's okay," said the man. "Why don't we start from the beginning?"

* * *

They called it the Raft. The most isolated and most secure prison in the world, created for people like her. Gifted. Mutant. Freaks. Whatever you wanted to call them. They flew in on a helicopter beneath a stormy grey sky and Jessica watched in silence as the prison emerged out of the choppy waves, a giant steel complex.

There had been no trial. No hearing. No official prosecution. Inmates spent twenty three hours a day in complete isolation and there was no chance of bail. They were imprisoned indefinitely. The helicopter descended and Jessica leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes. She was entering the mouth of hell.

"Jessica?"

The sound of the helicopter blades ceased. A small hand tugged at her sleeve. She blinked and nodded, unbuckling her belt.

"Come on."

They stepped out onto the landing pad. Jessica looked around, clocking the exits. Only two, and each of them guarded. They had a welcome party too: the prison warden flanked by two armed security officers.

"Ms Jones, Miss Walters. This way."

She held Chloe's hand tightly as the warden led them through a thick steel door and down an empty corridor. That was to comfort the girl but she had to admit, it helped her too.

They were going to see Kilgrave.

* * *

Hogarth closed the file with a decisive snap. "All done. Here's the bill for the last month of work."

She pushed a single crisp sheet of paper across the desk to Jessica, who leaned forward and took it. "I can't afford this."

Between Trish and Alice's hospital bills, fighting the insurance company to get any compensation for the fire at Trish's apartment building and paying the advance fees on a new apartment, they were flat-out broke. She would have to take out a loan and hope to God that she got a job soon despite her record.

"I expected as much," said Hogarth. "But I have an alternative proposition."

An alternative what? Jessica looked up. Her lawyer's eyes gleamed, the kind of look that had gotten her off all the charges the cops had wanted to press against her, from resisting arrest to conspiring to murder multiple police officers. As Hogarth had helpfully informed them, they had no case. They'd destroyed their own evidence. Jessica was another one of Kilgrave's victims and therefore not culpable of anything she may or may not have done.

So she'd lied. One lie that had changed the whole narrative. She was a victim and he was the villain and that made the story so much easier to swallow. She'd escaped scot-free and she told herself it was so she could take care of Trish while she recovered in hospital, and make sure that Alice and Chloe returned safely home once they had recovered too, but she'd done all of that so… now what?

"What kind of proposition?"

Hogarth smiled, standing up. An article pinned up on the wall described her as 'shark-like' and Jessica could see it in the way she prowled her office, every inch of her focused.

"Our case rested on one gifted individual." Hogarth walked around her desk to stop in front of Jessica, folding her arms. "But the evidence suggests that Kilgrave isn't the only one with abilities. You're gifted too."

Her tone was matter-of-fact. It wasn't a question. Even if she'd dismissed the allegations of violence, she'd obviously done enough digging to work out that Jessica had more than a decent right hook.

Jessica stared back at her. "So?"

"Sometimes my cases require further investigation. I need someone to get me evidence that no one else can and your gifts might come in handy. So I'd like to put you on retainer."

"Wait. You're offering me a job?"

Of all the places she had expected this conversation to go, an offer of employment wasn't one of them.

"I'm offering you a job," Hogarth confirmed. "If you accept, I'll give you a case and wipe out your fees as a token of good will. Any further services will of course receive appropriate compensation."

Working for Hogarth. The prospect had never occurred to her. Instinctively, she railed against it; she'd rarely fared well working for a boss and she didn't know what kind of shady business Hogarth might get her into. On the other hand, she was broke. She needed the money. She needed something to do with her life that wasn't sitting by a hospital bed.

"I'll think about it," she said.

"If you must," said Hogarth. "Call me."

* * *

They didn't talk about the nightmares.

She had them for weeks after Kilgrave had been arrested. First back at Dorothy's house. Then at Trish's new apartment. Sometimes she woke in a seizure of panic, shaking and sweating, trapped in her own flesh. Or worse, with a frisson of longing, a heat in her skin left by the trail of his fingers, his voice in her head evoking both disgust and desire. She didn't admit to the desire. It was a Pavlovian response; he'd trained her for months, controlled her at the end with that rush of emotion, and it didn't matter how often she told herself that it was fake. She'd still felt the way he wanted her to. The emotions he'd tapped into were real.

She didn't tell Trish.

Not about the nightmares, and not about what had happened while she was under Kilgrave's control. It was hard to process, going from _I did this_ to _He made me do it_. The story of Jessica Jones, super-powered freak kidnapped and mind-controlled by another super-powered freak. In truth, she'd only had a glimpse of it, but that glimpse had been enough to inspire a wave of self-loathing that she could wallow in for the rest of her life.

Because she understood. The way she had treated his victims, everything she had put them through, had been so invasive, so stupid and so unnecessary. The only thing she could do with that shame was to lock it away in a box and never look at it again.

He still haunted her.

She woke pale and clammy with the ghost of his breath on her lips and the memory of his desire pressing into hers, like he'd yanked away every sensation in her body and filled her with his own. A doll-Jessica animated by his kiss, empty and hollow and aching without him. Her heart might have been pulled from her ribs.

She lay there, breathing hard, but the emptiness didn't go away. The bed had turned cold. She gave up and rolled over, padding out of the room and into the kitchen where to her utter surprise she found Trish smoking a cigarette. She hadn't done that in years.

"You too, huh?" said Trish.

She shuffled over to the fridge. "What? I always get hungry at three a.m."

"You don't have to go, you know."

Jessica shrugged, grabbed a tub of ice cream, a spoon and a bottle of whiskey, and poured herself a drink. She knew what Trish was talking about. They'd been having a back-and-forth discussion for a while now, since Alice and her daughter had returned to the UK. She could have kept it a secret but with where they were going, someone ought to know. Just in case.

"You afraid they might lock me up?"

"A little, but…" Trish shook her head. "I don't know, seeing him again…"

"It's not for me. It's for Chloe."

Alice had refused to make the trip, so Jessica had volunteered. She'd done everything right, gotten special clearance. The S.H.I.E.L.D people seemed to know what they were doing, more than the police at any rate, and though Jessica didn't trust any organisation with that long an acronym, they already knew about her and Chloe. If they wanted to do something nefarious, they would have done it by now.

Trish still looked unhappy, folding her arms.

"Look," said Jessica, "she needs closure, okay? She needs to see that he's locked up for good."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you need to see that too?"

 _Damn it, Trish._

She shoved a dollop of ice cream into her mouth which froze her teeth. "I don't know."

"Should we talk about it?"

"I'm tired of talking about it."

She'd done the therapy, same as Trish. She was moving on.

"I know, but… You're going to see him tomorrow. If there's any time to talk…"

She sighed. "I want him out of my head, Trish. I want him out of my life for good. Maybe seeing him will help."

If nothing else, it might help Chloe. She couldn't hope for more than that.

* * *

"Thanks for doing this," said Chloe.

They were eating burgers and fries at a fast food place ahead of their trip. Alice had dropped her daughter off and asked Jessica to bring her back safe, but she hadn't lingered. Jessica understood, or thought she did. It was hard to look at Alice without a lot of unpleasant memories coming back to the surface.

She wondered if Alice would ever forgive her. She couldn't blame her if she didn't.

Jessica slurped her Coke. "Well, I owe you one."

Chloe was silent for a while, picking at her fries. She opened her mouth, stopped, and looked up at Jessica. "Is it bad that I want to see him?"

That caught her attention. "What do you mean, bad?"

"Mum didn't want me to. She doesn't want to see him ever again."

"Can't blame her for that."

Alice had been wearing a scarf when she arrived with Chloe. It covered the scar on her neck, which Jessica had last seen when Alice had been discharged from the hospital: an ugly red welt, like she'd been sliced half open. She'd taken to hiding her hand in her pocket too, or folding her hands together so that the missing little finger wouldn't be noticed.

"We had a fight," said Chloe. "I said I only wanted to make sure that he was really locked up and then she got upset and we talked a bit more and… She said that she couldn't live without me. She… She told me that she'd thought about killing herself."

Jessica drew in a sharp breath. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't know what to say. What should I say?"

"I don't know…" She shook her head. "Look, I'll tell you this once. When I was with Kilgrave, I thought about it too. And something I've realised is… I didn't just wake up and decide I wanted to live instead. It wasn't a one-time decision. It's something I have to do every day. Most people take life for granted, but for your mom it's more complicated than that. Every day she gets up in the morning and that takes strength. So your mom is being really brave. I mean, she brought you here. I guess that scared her."

"Yeah…" Chloe pursed her lips. "I feel awful about it. I keep thinking it was my fault."

"Hey." Alarmed, she made her voice stern. "It was not your fault, okay?"

"But I could have stopped him. The first time I used my powers, I could have told him to stop and then he would never have come back for us and Mum wouldn't have been hurt and Dad would've…"

She choked back a sob and Jessica didn't know where to look. She knew the story: Chloe had told it to her while they'd been at the hospital. The girl hadn't realised what she was doing; she'd screamed at Kilgrave to get out and he'd fled the house, and she'd stopped her dad before he'd killed himself bashing his head against the wall but it had all been for nothing because Kilgrave had come back.

So Chloe blamed herself for her dad's death and for everything that had happened since. She wished she couldn't relate.

"Look," said Jessica, "you couldn't have known. I was the one who brought Kilgrave to you. It was my fault. You can hate me for it if you want–"

"I don't hate you."

"Your mom does."

Chloe's lip wobbled again. "It's hard for her."

"I know. Sorry."

She was making things worse. Who else did the girl have to confide in other than her mother? But Alice had suffered too; it didn't matter that Kilgrave had been defeated. He'd broken them all.

"What are you going to say to him?" Chloe asked.

She looked down at the table. "I don't know."

* * *

His cell was a specially constructed box. Soundproof, the warden told them, and airtight. Specially designed vents kept the oxygen flowing to the outside world without ever allowing Kilgrave's air to mingle with the rest of the prison. Three of the walls were concrete. The fourth was a two-way mirror, which they had access to via the observation room attached to the cell. And through the mirror…

Chloe inhaled sharply, drawing closer to her side.

"It's okay," said Jessica. "He can't see us. He can't hurt us in there."

Though she didn't say it, it was a shock to her senses to see him again as well. On the other side of the glass, mere feet away from her… The cell was furnished with basic necessities: a bed, sink and toilet. There was also a small pile of books by the bed. Kilgrave was sitting on the bed with his back propped against the wall, scribbling in a notebook. He wore a blue jumpsuit that she assumed was standard issue for all the prisoners. His eyes were fixed intently on the page; he paused, scrubbed something out and started writing again.

It was weird. Weird to see him focused like that, without any awareness that she was here.

"What is he writing?" Chloe asked.

"We let some of the long-term inmates keep a journal," the warden explained. "Helps to build up a psychological profile."

Jessica frowned. "You read that shit?"

"Hell, no. Not me. That goes to our psychiatrist."

She looked through the glass again as Kilgrave set aside the notebook and lay down with a sigh. He'd already filled half of it. God only knew with what.

The warden indicated a switch on the panel in front of them. "You wanna talk to him?"

He explained how the intercom system worked. A speaker on the ceiling allowed them to broadcast into the cell, while a camera fed sound and images to the television screen and speakers in the observation room. It meant that they could both see Kilgrave directly through the mirror, and see and hear him at all times via the screen, but he couldn't see them and he could only hear them if they switched on the speaker.

They had ten minutes, the warden said. He was happy for Jessica to have a conversation with the prisoner if she wanted to, but it wouldn't be private.

She looked at the microphone. Chloe was looking to her to make the decision, her expression uncertain. Funny. She hadn't decided what to do when she saw him again; she figured she would only know in the moment how it would feel. And seeing him now… Alone, bored, all of his charisma stripped away. The real Kilgrave was so much less than the ghost that had been haunting her.

 _He's pathetic_ , she thought. _He's nothing. And he can't hurt anyone else ever again._

"I'm good," she said, loudly, to make her view absolutely clear. "I have nothing to say to him."

"Well, that makes my job easier," said the warden, who didn't seem to care either way.

Chloe was staring through the glass, her expression unreadable. For a moment, Jessica struggled for the right thing to say. She wasn't good with kids. She didn't know how to deal with them.

"Hey," she said. "You can still talk to him, if you want."

"I don't know." The girl's eyes clouded. "I thought of so many things to say to him, but… He can't get out, can he? He really is locked away?"

"No one escapes the Raft," said the warden comfortably.

Chloe turned away from the mirror, edging her seat closer to Jessica's, and she realised that something else was bothering her.

"Jessica… I… I keep thinking. I'm half him. He said I was like him. He said he saw himself in me."

Saw himself in an impressionable teenager whom he'd controlled for months. It was a wonder Chloe was functioning at all. But she was stubborn, Jessica thought. Kind of reminded her of herself in that regard.

"He saw himself in you because he's a narcissist and narcissists only see their own reflection."

"But he's still…"

Still her father. She hoped to meet his parents someday, so she could congratulate them on what a fine job they'd done raising their son. And by 'congratulate', she meant 'drop them into a shark tank and see how they liked it'.

"He's not your dad," said Jessica. "He never was and he never will be. He doesn't define you. Your mom's waiting, okay? Forget him."

Chloe nodded, teary-eyed, and when Jessica took her hand to leave the complex, she didn't look back.

* * *

Her apartment was in a rundown part of Hell's Kitchen. Not Trish's. No, this place belonged to her and only her. For the first time in her life, she had a place of her own. Jessica opened the newly fitted door and showed Trish inside, watching as her friend looked around. It was pretty bare, she had to admit. Functional, mainly: she needed a desk, laptop and phone in her office, and not much else.

"It's very… you," said Trish diplomatically. "Minimal."

"It's got rooms to pee, sleep and eat too."

They did the obligatory tour before returning to the office, Trish sitting down and crossing her legs while Jessica leaned against the desk. Her desk, which she'd paid for herself. It was stupid how good that felt.

"It's great," said Trish. "You've come so far, you know. I'm proud of you."

She warded off the compliment with a shrug. "I'm just trying to get my shit together."

"Do you think you'll be okay, living on your own?"

"It's what I want." She knew what Trish was getting at, but it was true. "After all those months with Kilgrave, I need my own space."

There were… a lot of things they could have said about the past few months, the times they'd fought, the times they'd been too exhausted to talk, the times Trish had offered to listen and Jessica had refused to talk, retreating to her room. That was all she wanted to do. Retreat. Find herself a life that she could live on her own, without relying on anyone else. If she'd learned anything in her time with Kilgrave, she had learned that.

Trish didn't resent her for moving out; in fact, she'd seemed relieved, but Jessica hadn't consulted her about it. She'd simply left.

Trish shifted in her seat. "Yeah, of course. So, when are you planning to celebrate your grand opening?"

Jessica spread her hands. "This is it."

"Well… I'm happy for you, Jess. It's a big step and you did it."

"Yeah." She smiled. "Only took me six months. But I've done all the paperwork. As of today, Alias Investigations is officially open for business."

Hogarth hadn't been pleased at her going independent, of course. But she understood that business was business and Jessica hoped to still get cases from her. In the time she'd worked for Hogarth, she'd discovered a knack for intimidation, sneaking around and getting into places she shouldn't. Maybe she'd gotten something worthwhile out of those escape attempts with Kilgrave after all.

Anyway, she had a bunch of business cards and a glass panel on her door that proclaimed her to be a private investigator, which she would never admit was scary as shit. It was scary as shit but she was going to fucking do it.

"I think it's the right move," said Trish. "I can see you enjoying it."

"You know what," said Jessica, getting up. "If we're gonna celebrate, let's have a drink."

She went to the kitchen and came back with two tumblers and a bottle of whiskey, because some things hadn't changed. There were scars. There would always be scars. They'd left her with more sadness, more pain and more anger than the person she had been before. But she had the rest of her life to live and she couldn't spend it mourning the Jessica that she had lost. She poured their drinks, then raised her glass.

"To starting over."

"To starting over," Trish echoed.

No more false starts. No more living in his shadow. As she looked around, as they toasted the future together, a strange, light feeling bubbled up inside her, and she realised that this was it. A fresh start. She was finally able to build a life without him.

She was free.


End file.
